FAPCCI & Bamboo Mission organized “World Bamboo Day” celebrations

 The Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce & Industry in association with Bamboo Mission of India & Bamboo Society of India jointly organized “World Bamboo Day” celebrations on September 18, 2012 at Federation House, Red Hills, Hyderabad. Mr. Kameswar Ojha, Mission Director, National Bamboo Mission, New Delhi was the Chief Guest for this occasion.

Dr. M.R. Bhanja IFS, Addl. Prl. Chief Conservator of Forests, Andhra Pradesh, Mr. Rajendran, Megaserve Energy Systems Pvt Ltd, Dr. N. Barathi, CEO, Growmore Bio-Tech, Bangalore, Mr. R.K. Mehta, Chairman, Bamboo society of India, Mr. Devendra Surana, President FAPCCI and Mr. M.V. Rajeshwara Rao, Secretary General, FAPCCI where the other speakers at the occasion.

Mr. Kameswar Ojha said that the Over one and half billion people in the world live in bamboo houses. Bamboo and related industries provide income, food and housing to over 2.5 billion people in developing countries and 10 million people depend on bamboo as a livelihood source Employment to 71.25 m man days. The world trade in bamboo is currently estimated at 15 billion US dollars every year. The 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. Sporadic clumps are grown and available in agricultural lands, homesteads etc. Though 135 species of bamboos, including some exotics are reported as available in India, only three species constitute 78% of the growing stock. Clump forming bamboos are 67.3% of the total growing stock. Of all the clump forming bamboos Dendrocalamus strictus 45%, Bambusa bamboos is 13% D.hamiltoniiis 7%, B.tulda is 5%, B.pallida is 4% and all other species put together is 6% of the total growing stock. Melcocanna bambusoides, which is the non-clump forming bamboo, accounts for 20% of the growing stock and is found mostly in North Eastern states.

The forest areas containing bamboos are 8.96 million ha constituting 11.71% of the 74.96 million ha of forest area of the country 66% of the growing stock of bamboos is available in the seven Northeastern states and the balance 34% is in the rest of the country. The 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.    

Mr. R.K. Mehta, Chairman, Bamboo society of India made few recommendations is that the Productivity of bamboo cultivation can be increased by four times by selecting proper planting material and by following latest silviculture practices and agriculture practices. Bamboos can be safely and efficiently used as fuel by biomass energy producers and Government was requested to facilitate the biomass energy producers to use large stock of bamboos available in the forest, to activate 120 MegaWatt capacities which is ideal for want of biomass. There is a scope of setting up number of SME’s near bamboo forests to process available forest bamboo in to value added products etc.