Senior Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Azad Singh Dabas on Sunday objected to the conduct of three-day Global Bamboo Summit in Indore to enhance the bamboo cultivation in Madhya Pradesh. The summit concluded on Sunday.
The controversial IFS officer has many a time raised doubts over intentions of his departmental colleagues towards procurement and safety of forests. He has recently come out with an organization, System Parivartan Adhikari, Karmachari Sangathan.
In a letter to the Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF) Narendra Kumar, Dabas has stated that the Bamboo Mission started in Madhya Pradesh around three years ago, but in this duration too, the bamboo cultivation could not increase.
The State Bamboo Mission has organised several workshops, national seminars and investors meet at Bhopal, Jabalpur and Delhi, but at ground level it failed to promote bamboo production, processing and marketing. Subsequently, the bamboo cultivation kept on falling continuously.
Citing the figures, Dabas stated that in 1978-79, the total production of bamboo including MP and Chhattisgarh was 4 lakh notional ton. It came down to 41,858 notional ton in the year 2014-15. More than 75 per cent production of bamboo is alone from Balaghat district. looking at the numbers it can be said that there is steep fall in the production of bamboo in Madhya Pradesh.
Even after three years of the formation of State Bamboo Mission there seems to be no improvement in the production of bamboo. There were many reasons in the downfall of the bamboo production which are being utterly neglected, he added.
Chances of fire accidents in a bamboo forest, uncontrolled grazing, lack of proper cleaning of clumps, not working on time on bamboo clumps, attack of termites on clumps and in the present utilization technique existence of only cutting of bamboo were few reasons on which the Mission has to work.
Manage clumps scientifically than utilising them directly. Other than bamboo cutting cleaning and mud covering must be made mandatory.
At present only 30 per cent bamboo clumps are being cut. It must be made 100 per cent. Other than the first and second year’s bamboo Karla and Mahla all other grown bamboo must be removed so that it can provide enough space for the new bamboos to grow.
Attractive schemes should be prepared for the farmers towards bamboo cultivation. Arrangements should be made for cleaning and marketing, for those farmers who are already cultivating bamboo, Dabas added.