World Bamboo Day at Kisama Naga Heritage Village near Kohima

Kohima: The Northeastern state of Nagaland, which is home to five percent of country’s bamboo productions, wants to take big leap in cultivation and business benefit from the wild grass, the demand for which is fast growing.

The state which became the country’s first state to adopt a bamboo policy in 2004 is gearing up to generate more employment and wants its farmers, artisans and entrepreneurs to reap more benefits.

“As our state has huge bamboo resources, we have been giving more emphasis on its systematic cultivation and production of items from bamboo. We want to train more and more farmers, artisans and encourage new entrepreneurs under the state bamboo policy. The results so far has been encouraging and we want to gear up further,” a senior Nagaland government official said during the International Bamboo Day celebrations at Kisama Naga Heritage village, situated about 13-kilomters from Kohima, the state capital.

The celebration of the first International Bamboo Day, addressed by vice president Hamid Ansari was attended by several entrepreneurs, architects, business experts from across the country and abroad dwelt at length how to increase benefits from bamboo through sustainable cultivation and business.

The official said with security situation improving in the trouble-torn state and government was emphasizing more on development and employment generation, bamboo can offer huge benefits for people of the remote state.

Nagaland chief ministers Neiphiu Rio was hopeful of taking further strides in promoting bamboo and generate more employment. Rio said northeast is a rich bamboo territory with resources and traditions and with a future in bamboo production and export.

Nagaland governor Nikhil Kumar said the activities of the Nagaland Bamboo Mission have grown substantially and was being recognized not only in India but also abroad.

The Northeastern region houses 89 species of bamboo and Nagaland alone has 49 species. The natural gift has been part of life and survival of all the ethnic groups and the raw stock of bamboo in the North East region is conservatively valued at Rs. 5,000 crores.

Vice president Ansari on Sunday said with a modest target of two-fold value addition to the bamboo stock through suitable methodologies, an annual turn over of approximately Rs. 10,000 crore can be generated in the Northeast region. “In the context of India’s economy, the market size of Bamboo is expected to touch a figure of Rs. 42,000 crores in the next 15-20 years,” Ansari said.