New Clones, States Hold Hope For Rubber

High yielding crop clones coupled with new acreage for plantation is set to push up domestic rubber production to seven lakh tonne by the end of 10th Five year plan in 2007. Presently, India which is the third largest producer in the world, produces around 6.3 lakh tonne.

Rubber Board, which is the apex body for this commodity, is now working with five new high yielding clones which will be put to commercial use next year. Once they are used widely by the growers, production will go up substantially.

Kerala is the largest rubber producing state in India but it has reached near saturation in terms of acreage.

Rubber Board is now looking at north eastern states for further expansion of plantation. States like Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya have been identified as focus states which experts believe have huge untapped potential.

Even today, India is the highest yielding rubber producer in with annual production per hectre pegged at 1576 kilogram. Experts feel there is scope for further improvement with new crops.

As the corollary to this, government is trying to expand domestic consumption of natural rubber by setting up dedicated infrastructure.

Three such rubber parks are being considered, one each in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Tripura. Government is considering a public-private partnership model for building them. Tamil Nadu is, however, would mainly be driven by private initiative.

India exports Rs 2165 crore worth of rubber products which is less than 1 per cent of global rubber products trade. S M Desalphine, chairman of the Rubber Board, said low volume had created the scope for expansion.