Restructured National Bamboo Mission

What is the issue?

The proposed “Restructured National Bamboo Mission”, can capitalise on the immense bamboo potential for the north-eastern states.

What hindered the development of the Bamboo Industry in India?

Bamboo is a multi-utility grass and more than 300 ethnic groups in the northeast have traditionally been using it as food, housing and other needs.
It is essentially a type of grass, but was classified as a tree in India for over 90 years till recently.
This prevented the northeast, which grows 67% of India’s bamboo, from exploiting it commercially until recently.
While forest bamboo was out of bounce, till recently, the lack of policy support also didn’t allowed commercial use of non-forest bamboo.
Notably, China is the only country with a richer bamboo genetic resource than the north-east and exports a significant amount of bamboo.

How does the scenario look presently?

Bamboo’s commercial journey began when it was struck off the list of trees by amending the Indian Forest Act last year.
The recent budget has allocated of Rs. 1,290 crores for a restructured National Bamboo Mission (NBM).
This has raised hopes for a range of bamboo-based industries — from food processing to construction and the holistic development of bamboo industry.
But the restructured NBM needs to be more focussed on value-chain management and value-addition of bamboo at the community level.
Such an approach is what will bring more income to the bamboo farmers and bamboo processors.

What have been the controversies associated with bamboo?

Flowering of bamboo happens every 50-55 years, and this leads to dramatic increase in the population of rats that destroy crops and triggers famines.
Notably, once such famine (Matuam famine) in 1966 led to the creation of the Mizo National Front and a subsequent violent uprising.
There have also been instances of bamboo cartels shedding blood while competing for limited commercial opportunities.
But Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur governments have signed agreements for supplying bamboo to the upcoming bio-refinery at Numaligarh.
Such initiatives will offer a permanent source of revenue generation to bamboo growers and enhance commercial options for producers and marketers.

Source: The Hindu