Launch of Bamboo Clusters | 09 Sep 2020
Why in News
Recently, the Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare has virtually inaugurated 22 bamboo clusters in 9 states viz. Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Assam, Nagaland, Tripura, Uttarakhand and Karnataka.
- A logo for the National Bamboo Mission (NBM) has also been released.
Key Points
- Initiatives to Promote Bamboo:
- Use of bamboo has been an ancient tradition in India and it is now being supported with modern technology and the youth is being provided with training for the bamboo industry.
- The Indian Forest Act 1927 was amended in 2017 to remove bamboo for the category of trees.
- As a result, anyone can undertake cultivation and business in bamboo and its products without the need of a felling and transit permission.
- Import policy has also been modified to ensure the progress of the bamboo industry in the country.
- NBM supports local artisans through locally grown bamboo species, which will actualise the goal of Vocal for Local and help increase the income of farmers, reducing dependency on imports of raw material.
- 10 most important species which are required by industry have been identified and quality planting material is being made available to farmers for plantations.
- Apart from the existing Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), 10,000 new FPOs will be formed in 5 years.
- Well-organized FPOs engage in providing a range of assistance to farmers like imparting better farm practices, collectivisation of input purchases, transportation, linkage with markets, and better price realisation as they do away with the intermediaries.
- Common Facility Centres are being set up close to the plantations which will reduce the cost of transportation and increase local entrepreneurship, moving to a zero-waste approach.
- National Bamboo Mission:
- The restructured NBM was launched in 2018-19 for the holistic development of the complete value chain of the bamboo sector and is being implemented in a hub (industry) and spoke model.
- Objective:
- Connecting farmers to markets so as to enable farmer producers to get a ready market for the bamboo grown and to increase the supply of appropriate raw material to the domestic industry.
- It also endeavours to upgrade skills of traditional bamboo craftsmen as per the requirement of contemporary markets with a tie-up with enterprises and premier institutes.
- The Sector Skill Councils established under the National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) will impart skills and recognition of prior learning to traditional artisans, encouraging the youth to carry forward their family traditions.
- NSDA is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship that anchors the National Skill Qualifications Framework and allied quality assurance mechanisms for synergizing skill initiatives in the country.
- New Logo:
- It portrays a bamboo culm in the centre of a circle composed of half an industrial wheel and half farmers, depicting the objectives of NBM appropriately.
- The green and yellow colour of the logo symbolise bamboo often termed as green gold.
Way Forward
- States need to take forward the objectives of the National Bamboo Mission which would contribute to the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan through an “Aatmanirbhar Krishi (self-reliant farming)”.
- With the abundance of bamboo and its rapidly growing industry, India should aim to establish herself in global markets for both engineered and handcrafted products by increasing the exports even further.