The Hindu Business Line : Rubber Board identifies 5 lakh ha for plantations in N-E States

THE Rubber Board has identified five lakh hectares in the North-East region where rubber plantations can be developed to double the country's total rubber growing area.

"We can have five lakh hectares in the North-East to plant rubber. Since we have covered only 10 per cent of this area, there is enormous scope to increase our plantation area," said Dr N.M. Mathew, Director of the Rubber Research Institute of India. Tripura, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram have about 54,000 ha of plantation, which produced about 20,000 tonnes of rubber last year, according to statistics available.

The development of rubber plantations in the region is imperative to address the issue of widening gap between demand and supply for natural rubber as Kerala, which accounts for 92 per cent of natural rubber production, is saturated. "In Kerala, no more area is now available for rubber plantation. At the same time, our demand for rubber is increasing. We anticipate more widening of the gap between demand and supply in the years to come," Dr Mathew said.

India, ranked fourth among rubber producing countries, expects its rubber output to grow 4 per cent to 7.80 lakh tonnes this year, as against a 5.4 per cent growth in 2004-05. It had 5.73 lakh ha of plantation in 2003-04, of which Kerala accounts for 83 per cent.

In order to meet the growing demand of land for plantations, the Rubber Board is trying out innovating schemes in the North-East, in spite of insurgency problems. Dr Mathew said one of the ideas that had worked in the region is the Block Plantation Scheme. Under this scheme, some 100 tribals who own one to two ha of land each have been brought together.

"We plant rubber for them in the plantation, using their labour. We also pay them wages," Dr Mathew said. The Rubber Board supervises the plantation activities and when the trees are ready for tapping, locals are trained how to tap.

A co-operative society is formed to deal with the trading. Dr Mathew said about 1,000 ha of plantations have been created through the scheme. Most of such plantations have come up in Tripura.

The Tripura Government and the Rubber Board contributed 50 per cent each towards the cost of the scheme. "Now the tribals don't know how to spend the money they have earned from rubber," he said, underscoring the economic prosperity that has come to the locals from the plantations.

Dr Mathew said although land is available in the region, the cold climatic conditions of the North-East is not really conducive to rubber. Latex gets very thin and often overflows due to this weather.

"You cannot tap continuously under these circumstances and hence total tapping days are about 80 per cent of that in Kerala. Because of this issue, yield is relatively lower in North-East," he pointed out.

However, labour cost is significantly cheaper in the region compared to that in Kerala, thereby making the overall economics viable.

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