state | tripura
state | tripura
Growing with rubber When earning a livelihood becomes a challenge, farmers in Tripura eke out a living as rubber planters. Ratnadeep Choudhury delves into the growing economy of that state. Over the past few years the Left Front government in Tripura has had many achievements to talk about, yet the state still remains largely underdeveloped. The indigenous tribals still starve for the basic requirements and unemployment in the rural belts seems to be the biggest hurdle. But there is one answer to it - Rubber plantations. Rubber plantations have of late started to change the face of Tripura’s rural economy. There are many who might contradict this but if you meet Muktomohan Jamatia of Tripura’s Rayabari you are sure to oppose all contradictions. Muktomohan planted his first rubber tree in 1986. Now he has plantations in over 25 villages and owns 280 rubber trees. He even earns up to Rs 25 thousand a month. “People here were very poor and were earning two square meals a day was a Herculean task. Militants were all over. Everybody started earning through rubber and now militancy is out completely,” says Muktomohan. It was not an easy task. It took Muktomohan nearly seven years to convince local people that rubber cultivation has a future in this state. More than three decades ago, when the first rubber sapling was planted in the hilly terrain of Tripura, nobody perhaps imagined that there lied the long and strong root of a robust state 38
June 08
A Plantation site A collection pot hangs on a rubber tree. A new job
economy of the 21st century. Not only that, some political pundits felt that the rubber plantation was only a hot political issue and would foster no real hope to change the state’s economy. A school of thought felt that these evergreen plants would ruin the indigenous tribal cultivation system - Jhum. Some environmentalists also joined them and put forward their strong reservation that huge rubber plantations would substantially hamper the state’s wellbeing. Proving all of them wrong, rubber orchards have firmly held the helm and have ballooned into a pillar of the state’s economy. The Northeastern region in general and Tripura in particular, has the potential to transform itself into the world’s largest natural rubber producing region. Tripura is presently India’s second largest rubber producer after Kerala and the country’s second rubber-based industrial park is being set up in Tripura to boost the rubber industry in the state. Buoyed with the successful journey, the Tripura Rubber Mission (TRM), which was constituted in 2006, has set up an ambitious target to spread the rubber plantations to 85,094 hectares during the next the two decades. “Future expansion and growth of natural rubber in India lies in the northeast, which is agro-climatically most suitable for rubber cultivation,” Sajen Peter, chairman of the Rubber Board of India told a news agency. An estimated 60,000 hectares of land is now under rubber cultivation and in the next five years the area under the “liquid gold” cultivation would be doubled. As a matter of fact, in 1972,
Farmers cut the rubber plants for the latex sap. the total area under rubber plantations was merely 103 hectares and in 1998 it was extended to 25780 hectares. Moreover, the Tripura Forest Development and Plantation Corporation (TFDPC) is holding the lion’s share of rubber plantations with 11,344 hectares while another semi-government agency the Tripura Rubber Plantation Corporation (TRPC) possesses 4,509 hectares. Most importantly, individual farmers are also enthusiastically coming forward and have already begun plantations covering 12,880 hectares. Over the last three decades, rubber productivity has increased more than five times. In the 70s, the annual production of rubber was 200 to 300 Kg per hectare while at present it has gone well above 1000 kg and makes a total production of around 20,000 MT every year. Rubber plantations also gradually shape the rural economy in the tribal areas as it is already associated with 1029 tribal families. India is presently doing very well in terms of rubber productivity. “The annual productivity has increased from only 333 kg to 1,879 kg per hectare, which is the highest productivity in the world,” the Rubber Board chief said while addressing a seminar at Agartala recently. The union cabinet earlier approved a 4.13 billion rupees-scheme for re-plantation and fresh cultivation of rubber in the non-traditional areas, mainly in the northeastern states. An assessment made by the Rubber Board indicates that rubber could be
cultivated in about 450,000 hectares in the seven northeastern states, mostly in Tripura, Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. According to the Rubber Board and the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, an area of 100,000 hectares is suitable for rubber plantations in Tripura. To boost the industry, India’s second rubber-based industrial park is being set up in Tripura to bring about a natural revolution in the elastic polymer industry. The rubber park, a joint venture between the Tripura Industrial Development Corporation (TIDC) and the Rubber Board, is the second of its kind in the country after the rubber park at Irapuram in Kerala, where over 520,000 hectares are now under cultivation. Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (ILFS) is the project management agency of the park, where at least 20 rubber-based industrial projects would be set up within the next three years. “The rubber park is to be built in an area of 50 acres of land in the Bodhjunnagar industrial growth centre in western Tripura and over Rs.500 million are expected to be invested in the park over a period of three years,” says Pabitra Kar, chairman of the TIDC. With the absence of any big industries, Tripura now looks set to walk on a new track of development with rubber. So, the rubbery road seems to take Tripuara on a long drive. (With agency inputs) June 08
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