“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.

... contd.