Slow production, increasing prices worry bamboo sector

By: Syeda Ambia Zahan
GUWAHATI: The bamboo sector in the northeast is slowly becoming stagnant and production is going down, experts have said.
Tamreiyo Longvah, deputy manager, Cane and Bamboo Technology Centre (CBTC), a society of North Eastern Council (NEC) under the DoNER ministry, told TOI, "The sector is becoming stagnant and the price of raw bamboo is increasing day by day. The production of bamboo is going down because people are shifting to other lucrative businesses. Unless we address the problem, this will affect employment generation in the future," said Longvah.
He said the NEC would urge the Centre to make it mandatory for government offices to use 20-30% bamboo in its construction works.
"The NEC is very eager to know about the problems in the bamboo sector of the northeast, so that in the next financial year it could put forward recommendations to address them. Experts were called upon to help find out the reasons on why the sector is not growing as it is supposed to be," he said.
The CBTC is going to press upon the government of India to increase the import duty of incense sticks from Taiwan and China.
"The incense sticks coming from these countries have had an adverse impact on the local business. We have urged the Centre to hike the import duty as this could help the local markets," he added.