Five years after the Rubber Board sought land from the State government for setting up a rubber demonstration (model plantation)-cum-training centre for growers in the State, there has been no headway in making the proposal a reality.
The Kottayam-based Rubber Board, under the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry, offered to set up the centre provided the State government allotted 150 acres to it.
The then Chairperson of the board Sheela Thomas wrote to the then Principal Secretary, Revenue, V. Madhu, to this effect on October 10, 2011.
The board in the letter had said that the land could be allotted in the potential rubber-growing tracts of Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Shivamogga, Chikkamagaluru, Uttara Kannada and Kodagu districts. The board estimated a potential of about 1.5 lakh hectares of land for rubber cultivation in the Konkan belt (up to Ratnagiri in Maharashtra).
The move of the board was in response to an appeal by the Karnataka State Rubber Belegarara Hitarakshana Vedike, based in Belthangady in Dakshina Kannada.
The letter by the board made it clear that the board did not have its nursery in the State and farmers depended on private nurseries for their planting material requirement.
Sridhar G. Bhide, president of the vedike, told The Hindu here on Wednesday that the vedike had suggested to the State government to allot the required land at Koila village in Puttur taluk where the Department of Animal Husbandry owned 895 acres.
But the government said that the land was required for building a veterinary college and associated facilities and accordingly, 247 acres has now been handed over to the college. Even after handing over the land to it, the land sought by the board is available in the village. The government could allot it to the board in the same village.
Mr. Bhide said that a delegation led by Ministers in-charge of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi had met Chief Minister Siddaramaiah sometime ago and had sought the land for the board. But there has been no progress in allotting land.
He said that of about 50,000 hectares of land under rubber in the State, 35,000 hectares were in Dakshina Kannada and Kodagu.
If the elected representatives did not take an initiative to allot the land, the State would lose a project, he said.
