The decision was announced only hours after Telangana Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao, during a high-level video conference on Monday, urged mill owners to resume procurement from Wednesday.
Published Nov 18, 2025 | 8:47 PM ⚊ Updated Nov 18, 2025 | 8:47 PM
All 325 ginning mills across major cotton belts including Adilabad, Khammam, Warangal, Karimnagar, Nalgonda and Mahabubnagar have stopped lifting cotton.
Synopsis: Cotton ginning and pressing mills across Telangana have launched an indefinite strike, halting all seed-cotton purchases amid growing discontent over the Cotton Corporation of India’s procurement norms. The strike is likely to worsen the procurement crisis, which has already left both farmers and mills facing mounting losses, with many growers being forced to sell below the Minimum Support Price.
The cotton procurement crisis in Telangana took a turn for the worse on Tuesday, 18 November, as ginning and pressing mills across the state went on an indefinite strike, bringing all purchases of seed cotton to a halt.
The strike, called by the Telangana Ginning and Pressing Mills Association, follows growing discontent over the Cotton Corporation of India’s (CCI) procurement policy for the 2024–25 season, which millers say has pushed them into a corner.
The decision was announced only hours after Telangana Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao, during a high-level video conference on Monday, urged mill owners to resume procurement from Wednesday.
Despite the minister’s plea, the association announced the indefinite strike on Tuesday morning, saying that even a month after the procurement season began, most mills were running on empty while farmers stood in long queues with rejected produce.
All 325 ginning mills across major cotton belts including Adilabad, Khammam, Warangal, Karimnagar, Nalgonda and Mahabubnagar have stopped lifting cotton from the 141 CCI procurement centres and 184 market yards.
Cotton arrivals, already reduced due to moisture-based rejections, are now expected to come to a complete standstill until the deadlock is resolved.
Millers say they are fighting a losing battle under the Centre’s “impractical and unrealistic” rules. Several key issues flagged by both the state government and millers include:
Millers who joined the tendering process say they are suffering losses due to delayed payments and unfair pricing mechanisms.
After reviewing the situation with officials on Monday, Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao said he had informed the Centre about the plight of farmers, who have been battered on all fronts, from storms to rejections due to high moisture, and that the rigid central norms are pushing them to despair.
“Farmers toil day and night, but when they bring their hard-earned produce to procurement centres, the Centre’s harsh conditions leave them helpless. Two years ago, when a 25 percent procurement cap was imposed on pulses and oilseeds, the Telangana government itself stepped in to procure the remaining 75 percent at MSP [Minimum Support Price]. But the Centre cannot expect states to carry this burden every single time,” the minister said.
He recalled how soybean farmers last year faced a similar ordeal when the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India and the Centre rejected discoloured crop, forcing the state government to provide funds to ensure MSP.
Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader and MLA T Harish Rao on Tuesday visited farmers in Mogilicherla village, Warangal district, where he criticised the Congress-led government for turning its back on a crisis that has left farmers unprepared.
Speaking to distressed farmers, Harish Rao heard accounts of how growers are being forced to sell cotton at distress prices of just ₹4,500 per quintal, almost half the MSP of over ₹8,110, because of rejections over moisture content and CCI’s arbitrary 7-quintal procurement cap.
“From power cuts to urea queues and now this cotton fiasco, the Congress government has turned every aspect of farming into a nightmare,” Harish Rao said, accusing Chief Minister Revanth Reddy of devoting more time to political sabre-rattling than to resolving the daily suffering of lakhs of cotton growers across Warangal, Adilabad and Khammam.
Farmers also complained of fertiliser shortages, erratic electricity supply for irrigation, and what they described as a “complete abandonment” by the government, adding to their losses from the recent unseasonal rains.
