Can you guess how many people in the world live in houses made of bamboo?

It’s over 1.5 billion people. Bamboo, the tall grass, which no one can hardly miss by its height, provides sustenance to over 2.5 billion in the developing world.

Giving these tall statistics, Kameswar Ojha, Mission Director, National Bamboo Mission, said 10 million people depend on bamboo as a source of livelihood. It provides employment to 71.25 m man days. The world trade in bamboo is currently estimated at $15 billion every year.

Interestingly, a majority of bamboo is harvested by women and children, most of who live at or below subsistence levels in developing countries. In India, bamboos occupy 8.90 million ha of forest lands, he said while speaking at the `World Bamboo Day’ event organised by the Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Fapcci).

Though 135 species of bamboos, including some exotics are reported as available in India, only three species constitute 78 per cent of the growing stock. Clump forming bamboos are 67.3 per cent of the total growing stock. Of these Dendrocalamus strictus (45 per cent), Bambusa bamboos (13) D. hamiltoniiis (7), B. tulda (5) and B. pallida (4) per cent form the bulk. Melcocanna bambusoides, which is the non-clump forming bamboo, accounts for 20 per cent of the growing stock and is found mostly in north-eastern states.

Fapcci in association with Bamboo Mission of India & Bamboo Society of India jointly organised the event today.

States having major growing stocks of bamboos are Assam 16%, Manipur and Mizoram 14% each, Arunachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh each 12%; Orissa 7%, Meghalaya 6%, Nagaland, Maharashtra 5% each and the balance in the remaining States, Mr Ojha said.

The Chairman of Bamboo Society of India R.K. Mehta said bamboos can be used as fuel by biomass energy producers and the Government was requested to facilitate them to use large stock available in the forest, to activate 120 MW capacities.

>somasekhar.m@thehindu.co.in

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