Bamboo floor tiles, handicraft in offing

Bamboo, which grows in abundance in Tripura, is now ready for value addition and commercial utilisation with technology provided by China's Nanjing Forestry University.

The Bamboo Engineering Research Centre (BERC) at the Nanjing university has concluded after extensive research that the bamboo varieties found in the state could be used in making floor tiles, building materials and handicraft.

The state's Forest Minister Jitendra Chowdhury said the government had signed a memorandum of understanding with the BERC through the Tripura Forest Development and Plantation Corporation (TFDPC) in 2007 for transfer of technology.

The TFDPC had last year sent a consignment of two varieties of bamboo available only in Tripura -- Muli and Mirtinga -- to the university for research.

The minister said that the BERC had recently sent some samples of finished building materials with recommendations that the bamboo types available in Tripura had huge opportunity of export.

Chowdhury, who had led an Indian delegation in 2007 to seek technical assistance from the BERC, said efforts were being made to use the grass in making organic fertiliser and bamboo fibres for manufacturing pulp.

The TFDPC has already decided to establish a bamboo- based factory at Nagicherra industrial estate here with the Japan Bank of International Cooperation providing financial assistance.

"The initiative has been taken to exploit the potential of bamboos in the state," deputy manager of TFDPC Madhumita Som said adding the JBIC would provide a financial assistance of Rs one crore to promote non-timber forest products.

She said the factory would produce handicraft items and material for decorating houses. The TFDPC has initiated a training programme for artisans to run the proposed factory.

There is a growing demand for bamboo-made products as people have shown interest in various bamboo-made products in different commercial exhibitions in the country, she said.

Investors from Bangladesh are also showing interest with a  delegation of industrialists, led by Abdul Matlub Ahmed, president of Indo-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industries, visiting Tripura last week. It stayed for four days to explore possibilities of investment in the state.

Matlub, an industrialist himself, announced that he would relocate his Rs 200 crore pulp and paper mill from Sylhat to Tripura as bamboo is available here in plenty.