Question: Which of the following has jointly organised, National Conference on Opportunities and Challenges for Bamboo in India?
i) NITI Aayog
ii) Invest India
iii) National Bamboo Mission
iv) all of the above
Ans: iv)
Facts
- The National Bamboo Mission anchored at the Department of Agriculture Cooperation & Farmers Welfare organized a two day conference ‘National Consultation on Opportunities and Challenges for Bamboo in India’ through the virtual platform on 25th and 26th of February 2021.
- NITI Aayog and Invest India also joined hands with the National Bamboo Mission to conduct the event.
- Objective of the event was to discuss bamboo ecosystem for promoting the holistic growth of the sector across the entire value chain.
- Discussion involved experts and stakeholders from various fields to further accelerate the efforts of the National Bamboo Mission to pin point solutions to issues facing the sector.
Some important ideas/challenges
- Adoption of agro-forestry models by the farmers, especially to tide over the initial 3-4 years of gestation of bamboo plantation; Intercropping with ginger, pulses, lemon grass, etc were suggested.
- Use of good credible planting material and improved agronomic practices to increase yields.
- Plantations on culturable wastelands should be encouraged on a large scale to provide feed stock to industry.
- Integrated primary processing units for the complete utilization of bamboo i.e. a zero waste policy would lead to optimum use of bamboo in the country.
- Use of waterways and transport subsidy options to solve problems of transportation specially in north east region. Steps need to be taken to encourage startups, entrepreneurship in the bamboo sector.
- The GeM portal will create a dedicated window for registration of bamboo products to add visibility of bamboo products in the electronic market space for Government procurement.
By kameshwar shukla