GUWAHATI, July 1 ? The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, an apex bank of India working for the development of rural areas, is implemented a ?special plan? from April 1, 2004 to protect Assam from a rat-induced famine, which is likely to hit the State economy hard within two years. Conceptually, a ?famine? is a crisis period caused by low agricultural production leading to shortage of food and other necessities. Going by previous experience, it is expected that the next round of large-scale flowering of bamboo in the region will occur anytime between 2005 and 2007.
It has been already estimated that flowering of the Melocanna baccifera species of bamboo will occur in an area of about 18,000 sq km, largely spread over the States of Mizoram, Tripura and Manipur, as also parts of Assam and Meghalaya. The last such massive flowering of Melocanna baccifiera had occurred in Mizoram, Tripura and the adjoining Barak Valley of southern Assam in 1959, which was followed by a severe famine that left a fear psychosis in the minds of people in those areas.
Experts have already started looking into various aspects of bamboo flowering. It is feared that the ensuring flowering of bamboo, these vast resources may cause not just environmental and economic problems, but also cause psychological and social problems in the Northeast, if not tackled on time. Experts have laid special emphasis on harvesting the bamboo before the flowering process begins simple calculation has indicated that about 26 million tonnes of bamboo is available, if proper harvesting is done before flowering takes place between 2004 and 2006. Of this, only about ten million tonnes of bamboo will be available in areas that are accessible.
So far, Mizoram has experienced the rat-induced famines several times during bamboo. The problematic issue is currently causing concerns in different quarters in the State in particular and the region as a whole. The State has a unique topographic feature. The entire range of the Mizo hills is covered with thick bamboo vegetations of two varieties. One of them flowers and sprouts seeds every 50 years, the other flowers every 30 years.
The flowering and seeding of bamboo triggers a phenomenal proliferation of the rat population in jungles of the State. In fact, rats feed on the bamboo, razing vast stretches of standing crop, which lead to famine-like situation. The common people have become so experienced that they can now predict when the next famine will occur. They saw one famine in 1959 and another in 1977. Now they are predicting that the very next famine will strike by 2007.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) decided to launch the ?Cane and Bamboo Technological Upgradation and Networking Project,? covering the seven northeastern States of India. The cane application and bamboo technology ?project? is sub-programme of the larger technology management programme (TMP). The Department of Science and Technology, Government of India is the executing the TMP. While the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), the assigned implementation agency, NEDFi is the field implementation agency, responsible for project expansion activities through the Cane and bamboo Technology Centre (CBTC), Guwahati.
The CBTC acts as the secretariat and coordination body for the network. The project is to focus in some new areas, where there has been very little or no thrust at all. Among them are testing of Indian bamboos and setting up of a bamboo-testing laboratory, setting up of a Bamboo Housing Resource Centre, introduction of syllabus and curriculum on cane and bamboo technologies in the industrial training institutes of the region, and promote the industrial application of bamboo. This project is aware that the interest of the cane and bamboo sector needs to be protected and that there is an urgent need to establish criteria and indicators or sustainable management of cane and bamboo.
The bamboo cultivation schemes of NABARD for Assam is quite laudable. However, the associated commercial banks, NEDFi and RRBs are to carry forward it on a bullish note. This is because of the fact that the State is caught under a cash-starved situation where the flow of bank advances are on the decline. The banks should shoulder higher responsibility so as to fulfil the vacuum created by the inability of the weak-State machineries to purvey credit on any significant scale. Then the targeted beneficiaries of the scheme will gain out of it and, hence, the ensuring famine will be checked well.