Under the Technology Mission on Cotton (TMC), the Mandi Board has installed a number of state-of-the-art machines at various mandis. Among the most prominent machines is High Volume Fibre Tester Series (HVFTS) machine, which calculates parameters like the staple length of the fibre, its micronaire value (which determines the finesse or coarseness of the cotton fibre) and its strength among other things.

The minimum support price (MSP) of cotton in Punjab is Rs 2,800. According to a September circular of the Ministry of Textiles, cotton, whose staple length is between 27.7 mm and 28.5 mm (that falls in the long staple category) and whose micronaire value is between 4.0 and 4.8, qualifies for the Rs 2,800-MSP.

“The installation of the machines had become all the more significant with the government declaring support price on the basis of parameters like staple length and micronaire value,” says Vijay Sharma, in-charge, Mandi laboratories, which are located across the state.

The Mandi Board has already installed the HVFTS machines at five different places, including Bathinda, one of the major cotton markets in the cotton belt of Malwa. The machines cost more than Rs 16 lakh each, said Sharma.

A visit to the cotton mandi in Bathinda, however, revealed that the farmers had failed to reap the benefits of the cutting edge technology.

“I have already sold my cotton to a private player for less than the fixed MSP. I was not aware that a machine could find out the quality of my cotton,” said a farmer, Jeet Singh, of Bhagu village, while shooting a query, “Can I get it done now?”

“Had I been aware of such a testing, I would have gone for it before settling for a price much less than the MSP,” rued Hardev Singh of Kot Shamir village in Bathinda district.

“I had come to a private testing laboratory in Bathinda. They told me that they handled samples in bulk before guiding me to the Mandi Board machine for free tests. It was from them that I came to know that the Mandi Board had installed a machine. Spreading some awareness would help because the machines are really good,” said Gurjeet Singh of Madrasaa village in Muktsar district, who came all the way to Bathinda for getting the quality of his cotton checked.

Insiders revealed that even as best machines were installed, most of the cotton purchases in Punjab mandis were done through manual inspection of the produce as far as the quality was concerned.

The Mandi Board officials, however, blamed farmers for making the machine a non-starter.

“The farmers are not willing to give even 100 gram of cotton for testing and that too when the tests are conducted free of cost,” claimed laboratories’ in-charge Vijay Sharma.

The significance of the machine could be gauged from an incident that involved a dispute between Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) officials and five different farmers on the issue of quality of cotton at Bhucho Mandi.

“To know the truth they gave samples of cotton to us. Three of them qualified to get the MSP,” said Sharma, adding that there were some places where the staple length of cotton was turning out to be extra long after testing.

And this is not all. The ambitious farmers information centre (FIC) also appears to have run into rough weather in certain places.

Sources claimed that the FICs have been found to have developed snags. The online information centres were aimed at keeping farmers abreast about the overall cotton scenario, including the pricing, arrival and lifting of cotton in different markets of the state.

The FIC kiosk in Bathinda is lying cold in a corner of the Mandi Board office, with officials claiming that they have been repeatedly requesting the officials concerned to fix the problem.

Dr Sanjeev Paswan, the representative of Electronics Corporation of India Limited, which is behind the FIC project, however, claimed that barring a couple of places, the FICs were running fine.

“We have already fixed problems in Bathinda FIC thrice. There appears to be a major technical fault. We would sort that out soon,” said Dr Paswan.