Mizoram to change poor man's timber into 'Green Gold'

Aizawl, Jun 2 (UNI) Mizoram government has chalked out a comprehensive year-long plan to utilise all its bamboo resources before it perishes due to flowering.

Bamboo ('Melocanna baccifera'), which had grown over an area of more than 6,400 sq kms covering a third of the state has started flowering. This is a unique phenomenon that occurs once in 50 years, across the North East region and Mizoram in particular.

According to the government's 12-month promotion plans, all the bamboos would be harvested and utlised for export to different paper industries, including neighbouring Bangladesh, setting up pioneering environmental friendly power stations that run on bamboo to help meet the new industrial energy needs, promoting bamboo-based cottage industries and establishing chipping and pulping units in the small scale industrial sector.

Apart from this, eight bamboo industries have already been set-up across the state at the cost of Rs 700 lakh. Establishment of export promotion industrial park at Bairabi, Champahai and Tlabung and setting up of district industry centres are also in the pipeline.

''My government has already prepared a detailed blue print to ensure that all the bamboos would be harvested before the flowering takes place,'' Chief Minister Zoramthanga told UNI.

''We have already started constructing bamboo-link roads through out the forest, which enabled to reach and harvest it,'' he said adding ropeways have also been set-up to transport these harvested bamboos to the mainland.

MORE UNI SNR BA MSJ DB1021