Mumbai: A team of market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will visit Gujarat to inspect quality of cottonseed oil cake stock in warehouses of National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX).

Cottonseed crushers from Kadi in Gujarat have filed a complaint with the Sebi against NCDEX, alleging that the quality of cottonseed oil cake stock is not up to the mark.

“We have filed a complaint to the market regulator over the lower quality of cottonseed oil cake stock and a Sebi team is coming to inspect the quality of the stock,” Kadi Cotton Crushers’ Association committee member Pratik Patel told PTI here.

Kadi is the leading COCUD and other oil cakes market in India.

Patel alleged that NCDEX has not invited the association members for inspection.

NCDEX warehouse at present has total stock of approximately 15,000 tonnes, which is equal to 3 lakh bags of COCUD. This is 30-35 per cent of the total stock available in Indian market, he said.

NCDEX yesterday claimed that the stocks of Cotton seed oilcake (COCUD) deposited in the exchange-approved warehouses has been found to be in conformity with the contract specifications after a quality audit prompted by fears of adulteration with ricebran.

Responding to recent concerns surrounding COCUD, NCDEX said it has conducted extensive, additional audit on 5,500 MT deposited at warehouses located at Akola and Kadi and tests at First Source Lab, Hyderabad.

The test results have indicated that the protein content in COCUD deposits is well within the contract specifications.

It also said that NCDEX has been conducting quality audits at Akola and Kadi for COCUD deposits from December 2015. Over 25 per cent of the total deposits have been covered by the audit till August 2016.

Sampling was done by NCDEX officials by randomly selecting the lots to be audited from the stocks accepted by the WSPs. These samples were coded to hide the identity of WSP & of the lots and then sent to another empaneled assayer (including an independent assayer) for verifying quality of the stocks, it added.

PTI