While Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) -- the government authorised agency for cotton procurement - made purchase of large quantity of cotton on MSP of Rs 5,665 (for premium quality of cotton MSP is Rs 5,725), private players have started making purchase of cotton for even Rs 5,900 per quintal. The private players, including cotton traders and cotton factories from different parts of the state, can be seen entering into rivalry, placing bids and quoting prices higher than the other to purchase cotton on higher than minimum support price in different mandis in Malwa districts these days. As a result, farmers from different villages have started bringing cotton in bulk to the mandis for procurement these days.While CCI had started procurement early this season and made record purchase in the initial few months, it’s the private players who have started calling the shots at mandis across the state by making maximum purchase of cotton now, thereby triggering CCI’s ouster from the market for now. Industry experts have attributed the purchase of cotton above the MSP to the increased demand for cotton in the market as traders are further fetching good prices from cotton spinning mills that are placing bulk orders. The experts have also cited a record purchase (approximately 80 per cent) of the total arrival of cotton by the government procurement agency as the reason for increase in MSP as private players feared for shortage of cotton in the coming months.  Talking to The Tribune, Neeraj Kumar, General Manager, CCI Punjab, said, “The private players are buying cotton above than MSP as there is increase both in demand and price of cotton in the international market. Moreover, cotton traders sometimes store raw stocks and wait for the prices to soar further so that they can get heavy margin for selling it at the right time.” As per records of CCI, the government procurement agency has made a purchase of 27.50 lakh quintal of cotton, while private players have purchased approximately 5.5 lakh quintal of cotton this season in Punjab so far. While farmers selling cotton above the MSP are quite upbeat, there is a section of farmers who are holding on to their crop in the hope that prices of cotton might increase in the coming weeks and selling their produce then would fetch them even higher rates.