GUWAHATI, May 30 – India has 130 million tonne of bamboo resources that has been exploited only partially. Covering an area of ten million hectare, bamboo has a huge commercial potential. It is to translate this potential into reality that the Centre had set up the National Mission on Bamboo Applications (NMBA) under the Department of Science and Technology (DST). The Northeast produces two-thirds of the country’s total bamboo. Naturally, the NMBA has focused on this area. Since it was set up some two years ago, the Mission has initiated several steps to bridge the gap between the latest technology and the end-users.
Addressing a press conference here today, Chairman of NMBA’s Mission Advisory Committee, Dr Jayanta Madhab, said that the Mission’s brief is to develop bamboo products and carry out research activities. “We have spent nearly a year on technology development,” he said, adding that a lot of “perfections” have been carried out on existing technologies to suit Indian conditions. Bamboo and its usages are not new in India. Millions of people in the country depend on it for their livelihood and use at home. India’s bamboo resource is the second largest in the world. There are about 130 species spread across 18 genera, which grow naturally up to an altitude of 3,500 metres.
Bamboo is currently in the process of being ‘rediscovered’ in India. Its attributes and potential are increasingly being recognised. The Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) is implementing the NMBA in a focused, mission mode. The NMBA supports technological upgradation, develops indigenous capacities and enterprise and provides linkages with markets. It functions as a platform for exchange of knowledge and technology and encourages association and cooperation amongst sectoral constituents and stakeholders.
TIFAC has carried out a review of current and potential uses of bamboo. It can be used as wood substitutes and composites, structural and constructional applications, bamboo shoots, propagation and cultivation, machinery and process technologies, industrial products and energy and related applications.
In an area of wood substitutes and composites, a 60,000 sqm per annum capacity plant is being set up at Amingaon in Guwahati to manufacture flooring boards and furniture. The plant, said TIFAC adviser VS Oberoi, is being set up by a private entrepreneur at a cost of Rs 5.2 crore with NMBA providing Rs 2.45 crore. “It is a breakthrough unit with high-end products,” said Dr Madhab. NMBA has also approved, in principle, the setting up of a composite bamboo unit in the city for shuttering material, Oberoi said. The unit would produce bamboo mats and curtains and could come up in the next few months. The Mission is also promoting a 200 TPA unit at Jorhat for processing and packaging bamboo shoots at Jorhat. Another such unit has been approved at Dimapur. NMBA is also exploring the possibility of reviving closed plywood factories in the region using bamboo instead of wood. Only a slight modification in machinery is needed, said Oberoi. Bamboo, unlike timber, is a renewable resource that can and should be harvested annually.
Promoting other uses of bamboo, NMBA is promoting gasification of the grass to produce energy and a range of by-products. According to Oberoi, it can utilise waste generated by processing operations, substitute the use of fossil fuels and lower operating costs. This is particularly suitable for off-grid and remote locations and to meet the captive industry and utility needs. The Hindustan Paper Corporation (HPC), Jagiroad, has evinced interest in bamboo gasification utilising its waste bamboo dust, said Oberoi. A 1 MW unit is being set up there. A similar unit may be set up at Panchgram too. A demonstration unit is already functional at Tezpur University.
Perhaps the most ambitious project of NMBA is to try and use bamboo as an anti-erosion tool in Majuli Island. A two-kilometre stretch is being planted with bamboo plants to test their ability to thwart the river’s erosive powers. Initial marking and planting has already begun, said Oberoi.
NMBA is using satellite imagery to survey the bamboo resources in the country. The results have been good in the Northeast, Oberoi said. It has made it possible to identify specific bamboo species. “We hope to give State governments a far more accurate information on existing bamboo resources,” he said. In a bid to introduce bamboo types that are more suited to industrial applications, NMBA is focusing on tissue culture (TC). According to Oberoi, 300,000 cultured plants are to be planted in the region this year. The plants, to be airlifted from Hosur and Palampur, would be offered to state governments at Rs 2.5 each after they are ‘hardened’ at a facility at Jagiroad. The HPC has already made plans to use it. The first batch of the TC plants is expected to arrive by August.
TC plants can increase bamboo productivity. According to Dr Madhab, China’s productivity is six times larger than India’s. Advocating the need to take up plantation cultivation of bamboo, he said that the plant could fetch returns of Rs 20-22,000 per acre. So far, India’s contribution in the export market in bamboo products has been insignificant. China, on the contrary, earns $ 2 billion from the export of bamboo products.