The Hindu Business Line : Bamboo is grass and not tree, says CII joint study

Recommedations
The Government can embark on a systematic plan to rejuvenate the degraded bamboo forest areas.
With protective measures, the yield can be increased.
Private plantations can be promoted to meet the needs of the bamboo-based products and applications.

M.R. Subramani

Chennai, May 2

Is bamboo a tree or grass? It is grass, says the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in a joint study with the India Development Foundation. Not just that, CII also wants the word “bamboo” removed from the definition of “tree” under Section 2(7) of the Indian Forest Act, 1927.

The CII’s objective to have these things done is to ensure that various restrictions on bamboo’s harvest, transit and trade can be removed and it can be grown on private lands.

A major reason for this is that bamboo production in the country at 13.47 million tonnes (mt) a year against is far short of the 26.69 mt demand a year.

The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and India Development Foundation (IDF) undertook a study on “Industrialisation of bamboo sector in India” and came up with a slew of suggestions to augment availability and supply.

The suggestions laid more emphasis on scientific and proper harvesting, besides amending the current regulatory regime of bamboos in the country.

Short supply

One of the interesting findings of the study is that despite a non-existent bamboo-based industrial sector and paper mills pruning use of raw bamboos, there has been a huge short supply.

According to the study, three things can be done to overcome the problem of supply shortage in bamboo, which grows faster than wood and needs less water.

“First, the Government can embark on a systematic plan to rejuvenate the degraded bamboo forest areas by the Forest Department.

Second, the yield can be increased and third, private plantations can be promoted to meet the needs of the bamboo-based products and applications,” the recommendations of the study said.

Forest areas

The study found that 9.6 million hectares or 12.8 per cent of the forest area in the country contains bamboo. But the distribution is not uniform with the bamboo-rich areas being confined to the north-eastern parts, Siwalik Hills of Uttar Pradesh, Bastar region in Madhya Pradesh, Western Ghats and the Andaman islands.

The yield per hectare in the country is two tonnes but it can go up five times in rain-fed areas, where the crop should also be protected from grazing.

But the problem with bamboo growing in forest is that the Forest Department harvests only dry bamboo. If the harvest of green bamboo can be carefully worked out, the production and yield can increase sharply, the study said.

Again, bamboo is regulated by the three Central Acts. They are: The Indian Forest Act, 1927; the Forest Conservation Act 1980; and the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.

The CII-IDF study said the regulatory structure “is a quagmire of archaic forest laws, where bamboo is defined as a tree, and therefore, felled bamboo was termed a timber.

The CII plans to petition the Ministry of Environment and Forests along with the Planning Commission to remove the restrictions on harvest, transit and trade in bamboo grown in private lands. The CII is of the firm view that bamboo is a grass.

The study’s recommendation said private-public partnership could be encouraged to manage plantations and the Forest Department could provide suitable species’ sapling.

The study said regulations were found to be the most important bottleneck and these needed to be addressed immediately.

Restrictions

Removal of restrictions would give fillip to private plantations and thus enable the sector to develop. Bamboo also had to be removed from the list of forest produce in Andhra Pradesh under the Andhra Pradesh Forest Act, 1967. The Act was also in conflict with the Andhra Pradesh Minor Forest Produce (Regulation of Trade) Act, 1971 wherein bamboo is termed as a minor forest produce.

Also, bamboo had to be removed from the list of specified forest produce in Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa so that State control and monopoly in trade would end.

The study said a planter could begin earning Rs 2 lakh a year profit from the third or the fourth year if he grows bamboo on 10 acres.

Also, the National Mission on Bamboo Application should be upgraded to a permanent Board for “Bamboo Applications and Technology Development” to sustain the gains from the mission, the study said.

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