LAHORE: Widespread adulteration and corruption in cotton ginning factories have pushed the country’s textile industry to the brink of a major crisis, threatening a steep fall in exports and a heavy reliance on imported cotton.

Ginning factories across several cities, particularly in Sindh’s Sanghar district, are reportedly increasingly mixing large quantities of cotton waste into raw cotton. The practice has escalated sharply during the 2025-26 season after monitoring efforts ground to a halt following the registration of a criminal case against the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) Monitoring Committee team in Tando Adam.

The raiding team members were forced to seek bail from the Hyderabad bench of the Sindh High Court, leading to a halt to the active oversight.

The crisis is compounded by internal betrayal within the textile sector itself. Laboratory staff at various textile mills were found colluding with ginning factory owners and taking bribes to approve waste-laced cotton bales as high-quality, industry sources say.

Quality drop forces industry towards imported cotton

In response, several mill owners fired their entire lab teams and ordered fresh sampling of warehouse stock to return adulterated cotton to the sellers.

A striking example surfaced early this week when a mill in Dera Ghazi Khan received 200 bales with such high waste mixing that PCGA and broker representatives were called in to officially verify the fraud.

Industry experts, including Cotton Ginners Forum Chairman Ihsan-ul-Haq, caution that the practice — previously involving concealing waste within bales in a scheme known as “burger cotton” — is compromising the quality required for international-grade garments. With leading textile mills suspending local cotton procurement, the prices of raw and seed cotton are anticipated to decline sharply in the near future. Prompt disciplinary measures against fraudulent factory owners are crucial to protect national exports.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2026