With the reduction on the import duty on bamboo products, indigenous bamboo growers in Tripura are unable to compete with the machine produced bamboo sticks from China and Vietnam.

Agartala:
On a winter morning, the weather is foggy and chilly. But Sursen Chakma gets to work, just like every day, on the bank of the river Manu. He pulls out bamboos from the river’s edge and stacks them on the river bank. He is bare-chested and clad in half pants, to make the work easy. Sursen’s son, 11-year-old Newton Chakma helps his father to pull out the bamboo poles from the river, the child knows this earns them a living.

The river Manu flows from Longtarai Valley hills and enters Bangladesh. In Tripura, bamboos are transported on the river, to save time and money. Generally bamboos grow in the hilly areas and after they are cut, they are rolled into the river or streams that flow downward, and this is the easiest way of moving bamboo across the land.

Like Sursen Chakma, others too are engaged in the same work – harvesting, transportation and collection. A large number tribal families in the north-eastern states of India earn their livelihood in this manner every day of their lives.

Bamboos are mainly used for handicrafts. Bamboo sticks are used for making Agarbatti (incense stick). In Tripura, tribal people are good at making various artefacts and showpieces with bamboo. Hundreds of families depend on making bamboo sticks. Now, non-tribal people are also taking interest in such works. Tripura produces at least 70 per cent of all the bamboo sticks used throughout the country. Most of the Agarbatti factories are in central India and they take bamboo sticks from Tripura. Not only Tripura alone, all of the north-eastern states produce bamboo sticks, as bamboos is the most common natural gift for this region. Several types of bamboo grow here, and each of the types are used for different purpose. In tribal life, bamboo is used from birth to death.

Bamboo stick production is a popular work all over Tripura. But most of the people produce it by hand. Some small-capital holders have now started factories for making bamboo stick mechanically, but these are very few.

Sursen Chakma says, they sell the bamboo stick in the local Manikpur bazaar at the rate of Rs 14-Rs 15 per kilo. This way, each family is able to earn Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 every month, but to earn this every member of the family must contribute.

Manikpur is a remote corner of Tripura and it has often seen extremist violence. 

The Government of India has recently reduced the import tax on bamboo stick. Bamboo stick growers of the north-east fear they will now face a huge crisis, as Agarbatti factories in central India have started to import these mechanically produced sticks at cheaper rates from China, Vietnam and other countries. In these countries, the same bamboo sticks are made by machine.

Tripura’s forest and industry minister Jitendra Choudhury says he has complained to the Union Government for reducing import duty to just 10 percent.

“Small growers of north-east are not able to complete with China, Vietnam. They cannot now sell the sticks in open market, if foreign sticks are cheaper than their own”, the minister points out. “We have not received a response to this letter to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee”, he admits.  

In Tripura, the Sonamura, Shantibazar, Longtarai valley subdivisions are well known for bamboo stick production. The small growers sell their sticks in local markets approximately at the same rate all over Triprua. From these markets, small business men take the sticks and sell them in Cachar, on the border with Assam. The sticks are brought first to Cachar district in lower Assam, as it has a good connectivity to the other parts of the country. From Cachar the sticks are transported to the incense factories across India. 

Salim is one of the members of “Tripac”, a society working on value addition to bamboo. According to him, it is very difficult at this stage for the people who are attached to the bamboo stick production industry to change profession to survive. He thinks, if they can manage to value add on their production, this will increase their income. Salim says, value added, the price of a kilo of stick could climb to Rs 45 to Rs 50 per kg. 

Craftsman Tinku Das lives in Srinagar, in the outskirts of Agartala. “We are trying to add value to production, but inexperience and shortage of training facilities appear to be the main hindrance”, she explains with a hope that if they have proper training facility they will be able to face competition easily. Her neighbour artisan, Laxmi Das, echoes the same sentiments, and says they are very anxious about the reduction in import tax on bamboo stick. She wants to know, if they cannot sell their sticks how can they feed their family?

By Tanmoy Chakraborty