C.N. Pandey, director, Indian Plywood Industries Research and Training Institute, Bangalore, has said that the latest technologies should be adopted to bridge the gap between production and demand for wood-based panel products.
Dr. Pandey told presspersons here recently that the demand for these products was 8 million cubic metres a year against the production of 3.4 million cubic metres. “Growing population and economic development are the main reasons for the rise in demand,” he said.
The wood-based panel industry in India, which was dependent on natural forests for their raw material requirement earlier, was on the threshold of a crisis in view of the restrictions on timber extraction owing to environmental considerations.
With the industry growing at the rate of 4.3 per cent a year and demand for industrial wood estimated to reach 55 million cubic metres by 2020, Dr. Pandey said that barely 3 million cubic metres of the requirement was expected to come from forests.
“The demand for nearly 31 million cubic metres is estimated to be met by the farm and agro forestry and other woodlots. The remaining has to be met by imports, which has gone up almost three fold in 10 years. The imports stand at nearly 6 million cubic metres,” he said.
The solution to the problem was not increasing imports, but short rotation plantation of fast growing species besides utilisation of non-wood materials such as agro residues and bamboo, he said.
S.K. Nath, joint director of the institute, called bamboo a “wonder grass”. “We have the largest bamboo resource in the country. But, of the 13 million tonnes of bamboo that is available, only 4 million tonnes is utilised,” he said.
Conference
The institute will hold a three-day international conference from September 26 on its premises in Bangalore to chalk out strategies for the future growth of the industry.
Scientists from China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Italy and Bangladesh will present papers, and 200 delegates are expected to participate.
The demand is 8 million cubic metres a year against production of 3.4 million cubic metres
Expert suggests short rotation plantation of fast-growing species to meet the demand
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