Bamboo is the “Green Gold” with decreasing natural resources and ban on single use plastic, said B L Verma, MoS, DoNER in a Webinar on “Bamboo-The transition from Rural to Urban” on Friday.
From poor man’s timber to rich man’s green gold, bamboo is truly the “cradle to coffin timber” for the people of the North East. Bamboo is a gift of nature and India is blessed with the world’s largest bamboo resource. But the existing utilisation of the bamboo sector in the country remains underdeveloped and its share in domestic consumption and international trade is negligible. In order to track the journey of Bamboo from poor man’s timber to rich man’s green gold, the Tripura State Office of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) organized the Webinar on “Bamboo-The transition from Rural to Urban” with the objectives of Improving value addition and diversification of the bamboo products to cater to the export market; Focus on innovation and local utilization of bamboo to achieve the objective of “Atmanirbhar Bharat” through “Local to Global”; bring down the imports of bamboo to make the “bamboo economy” sustainable through employment generation
Speaking as the Chief Guest at the Webinar, the Minister of State said that with depleting natural resources and changing policy scenarios, such as the ban on single-use plastic, bamboo was increasingly looked upon as the most preferred alternative wood material. “It has thousands of well-documented applications in daily life. The need of the hour, therefore, is the involvement of scientific, socio-economic and industry experts for developing sustainable and indigenous technologies to convert bamboo into commercially viable bamboo based products”, he said.
Verma elaborated the vision of the Prime Minister on making bamboo the prime focus for the North East economy and mentioned about the initiatives his Ministry is taking in the region. He further announced that his Ministry would like to hold meetings with CII every three months to take bamboo initiatives forward and have invited for suggestions on policy advocacy work on the bamboo sector.
Chhavi Jha IRAS, Joint Secretary (NRM) & Mission Director, National Bamboo Mission, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India spoke about the schemes of the National Bamboo Mission on bamboo development and mentioned that NBM is collaborating with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to promote integrated Bamboo Park across the States.
Dr Neelam Patel, Senior Adviser (Agri), NITI Aayog, Government of India have sought inputs from industry body like CII for sustainable development of the bamboo sector to convert bamboo into commercially viable bamboo based products to utilize the circular economy.
Dr Alka Bhargava IFS, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Department of Forests, Government of Assam mentioned about the initiatives that the Government of Assam is taking to develop the bamboo sector and the industrial appliances to make it an urban commodity.
Earlier, Abhijit Barooah, Chairman, CII North East Council, Managing Director, Premier Cryogenics Limited delivered the Welcome Address and Anil Mutha, Chairman, CII Task Force on Bamboo & Chairman, Mutha Industries Private Limited proposed the Vote of Thanks.
The Inaugural Session was followed by a Technical Session on “Sustainable development of the bamboo sector through technology and innovations” which included speakers Neelam Manjunath, Proprietrix, Manasaram Architects, Bangalore, CEO, Founder and Managing Trustee, Centre for Green Building Materials and Technology, Bangalore, Member, INTACH, Yogesh Shinde, Founder, Bamboo India, Dr Sanjay Khajuria, Senior Scientist (Agroforestry), SKUAST, Jammu, Dr Abhinav Kant, Head-Bamboo and Cane Development Institute c/o North East Centre for Technology Application and Research, (NECTAR) and Neeraj Mutha, Managing Director, Mutha Industries Private Limited. The Technical Session was moderated by Kamesh Salam, CEO, Cane and Bamboo Value Chain Management (OPC) Private Limited.
