The Rubber Board will look to expand natural rubber cultivation and production in non-traditional areas, especially in the north eastern states during the XII Plan.
The Board has asked for more manpower to expand activities in the north-east, said Chairman Sheela Thomas. She told The Hindu on Tuesday that the shrinking number of hands was a major constraint in expanding activities in the non-traditional areas.
Augmenting manpower is important now that more states in the region have come forward with proposals for increasing acreage under rubber.
For example, Ms. Thomas said, the government of Mizoram had promised help in expanding rubber cultivation in the state, which has about 1,000 acres under the crop right now.
Cultivation operations have just begun in the lower reaches of the state capital Aizawl.
The department of soil conservation in the state had shown considerable interest to expand rubber cultivation in Mizoram and about 5,000 hectares could be under natural rubber in the state over the next 5-10 years.
A senior official of the Board said that the expansion plans for the north-east are huge. There is also a physical constraint because of the unique terrain of the region. Manpower shortage is quite acute considering the plans.
Recently, the Board opened four new regional offices in Assam. These offices were proposed during the XI Plan, the official said.
The Board’s proposal was to double acreage under natural rubber in the north-east, especially in Tripura, Assam and Meghalaya, the most suited of the states in the region for cultivation of rubber.
Assam, where rubber cultivation was launched even before in Tripura, has a potential for about two lakh hectares. Only 28,000 hectares have been brought under the crop so far.
Meghalaya has just over 9,000 hectares under rubber. Tripura has a potential area of one lakh hectares. Only 55,000 hectares have been tapped and the state accounts for eight per cent of the natural rubber production in the country.
India produced 8.99 lakh tonnes of natural rubber during the last financial year, an increase of 4.3 per cent over the previous year.
Besides manpower, the Rubber Board has sought enhanced subsidies for the farmers, assistance for setting up effluent treatment facilities, mechanisation of rubber processing and quality improvement.
