• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

Plan to boost bamboo-based industry in South, N-E

Surendranath C.

KOZHIKODE, Feb. 25

A NUMBER of projects for strengthening the cane and bamboo handicraft sector in the country have been included as a sub-component of the Fibres and Handicrafts Programme (FHAP) assisted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The projects drawn up by the Kerala Forest Research Institute (KFRI), the implementing agency, along with the State Forest Research Institute (SFRI) at Itanagar (Arunachal Pradesh) and the Institute for Rain and Moist Deciduous Forest Research at Jorhat (Assam) aim at conservation, enhancement, and documentation of cane and bamboo resources as well as propagation of cane and bamboo handicrafts in the country.

Technology upgradation for better value-addition in the handicrafts sector is a major objective of the project.

Under the programme, the KFRI would transfer the know-how it had developed in the last 20 years of research on bamboo and cane. It would also train scientists and artisans in the project implementing areas comprising Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Tripura in the North-East and Kerala in the South, the KFRI Director, Dr. Jyoti K. Sharma, told Business Line.

The three-year programme has been designed under the Government of India-UNDP Country Cooperation Framework (CCF1) for 1997-2002.

At its Nilambur and Peechi campuses, the KFRI housed the oldest bamboo and cane gene bank in the country with 47 species of bamboo and 30 species of cane.

The institute had developed storage techniques for increasing the shelf-life of bamboo seeds, standardised vegetative and micropropagation methods for several species, recommended fertiliser dosages for bamboo plantations and evolved control measures for bamboo nursery diseases.

It had also successfully carried out research on establishing seed stands and nursery seedlings of rattan (cane) and evolved morphological and anatomical keys for identification of various species of cane.

The economics and ecology of using bamboo in multi-tier cropping systems in homesteads and the problems in inter-sectoral allocation of bamboo resources had also been studied by the KFRI.

The institute also housed a computerised bamboo information centre (BIC), set up in 1989 with assistance from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada. BIC offered database searches supported with a global document delivery service.

In association with the International Network on Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR), scientists at BIC were now working on preparing a virtual encyclopedia on bamboo, according to Dr. K.K. Seethalakshmi, plant physiologist at KFRI and the coordinator for the UNDP -assisted programme.

Under the Rs. 1.6-crore programme, 60 per cent of the project funds would be spent in the North-East. The UNDP has already sanctioned Rs. 20 lakhs for the project.

An integrated gene pool bank of cane and bamboo species would be set up at an estimated cost of Rs. 27.69 lakhs. Survey and documentation of cane and bamboo species would be carried out at a cost of 16.47 lakhs.

``Though the north-eastern States possessed more than 50 per cent of the 130 species of bamboo available in the country, only a few forest species were now being utilised in the handicraft sector,'' according to Dr. R. Gnanaharan, scientist at the Resear ch Monitoring and Evaluation Division, KFRI.

Improved propagation techniques such as macroproliferation and tissue culture would be introduced and nursery and silviculture packages would be developed as part of the programme. Cane and bamboo farms of preferred species would be set up in the North-E ast and Kerala with participation of NGOs.

An important component of the programme will be the setting up of three common facilities centres (CFCs), one in the North-East, one at Angamaly in Central Kerala and another in Thiruvananthapuram under the technical management of Indian Plywood Industri es Research & Training Institute (Ipirti) in Bangalore, said Dr. Seethalakshmi.

The CFC at Angamaly is to be housed in the Kerala State Bamboo Corporation (KSBC). Two oil curing units, which will transfer to artisans the technology KFRI had standardised for imparting ivory colour and disease-resistance to cane, have been proposed to be set up, one in the North-East and another at Nilambur in Kerala.

The programme will also address the need for introducing diversified designs in the cane and bamboo sector, facilitating participation of artisans in international fairs/exhibitions and tying up production centres with the Government outlets.