By IRNA,
New Delhi : Cotton bales worth 70 million rupees were destroyed in a fire at the warehouse of the Gujco Marshall mill in Amreli district of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state today, police said.
The warehouse is located on the outskirts of Amreli city, where cotton bales were stored, PTI reported.
Though there were no casualties in the incident, the loss cause by the fire has been estimated at 70 million rupees, police said. Cause of the fire is not known yet.
Cotton is a natural fiber harvested from the cotton plant. Cotton is one of the oldest fibers under human cultivation, with traces of cotton over 7,000 years old recovered from archaeological sites. Cotton is also one of the most used natural fibers in existence today, with consumers from all classes and nations wearing and using cotton in a variety of applications. Thousands of acres globally are devoted to the production of cotton, whether it be new world cotton, with longer, smoother fibers, or the shorter and coarser old world varieties.
India is the third largest producer of cotton in the world after China and US accounting for about 14 percent of the world cotton production. It has the distinction of having the largest area under cotton cultivation in the world ranging between 8 million to 9 million hectares and constituting about 26 percent of the world area under cotton cultivation.
The yield per hectare is however, the lowest against the world average, but over the last two years have shown a promising potential to reach near the world average production level in near future.
Asia dominates the global cotton sector in terms of both output and use. China, India and Pakistan account for half of the world’s cotton production and two-thirds of world cotton consumption. Pakistan is the world’s fourth largest producer and third largest consumer.