This scheme has been introduced a: to generate income and employment opportunities for the small and marginal farmers and weaker sections of the society. b: to promote and carry out specialized cultivation of species of bamboo considered ideal and suitable for production of bamboo board and also for export. c: to maintain environmental balance through conservation of forests, by planting bamboo

India has the potential to be the largest bamboo growing country in the world. After Sugarcane, bamboo is the best solar energy conservator in nature and has a vastly lower need for water. Bamboo is a critical element in balancing the oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Bamboo plays a very important role in conserving soil and water. Bamboo is eminently suitable for housing and general engineering because of its high strength/weight ratio, phenomenal flexibility and tubular anatomy. The products made by traditional bamboo artisans groups continue to play a crucial role in the rural agro-industries, but most of India's 20 lakhs bamboo artisans have to suffer because of the scarcity of raw material. Bamboo farming is ecologically sound. Therefore, it is necessary to realize the immense economic potential of this amazing material, develop its utilization and propagation and to raise plantation of selected bamboo species, particularly in denuded hills and degraded areas; over logged forest areas; banks of the rivers and tanks; road sides and marginal farm land covered under agro-forestry programmes.

Objectives:-

The project should serve the following objectives:-

1. To generate income and employment opportunities for the small and marginal farmers and weaker sections of the society, particularly those living below poverty line and women in nursery raising, plantation and primary processing for manufacturing of Bamboo based products as well as for traditional crafts man using bamboo as a arrom material.

2. To promote and carry out specialized cultivation of species of bamboo considered ideal and suitable for production of bamboo board and also for export.

3. To maintain environmental balance through conservation of forests, by planting bamboo as alternate material in place of non- biodegradable & high energy consuming materials like metals and plastics.

4. To improve the design development and the utility of the Bamboo products by blending the traditional skills already available with the local people with the modern technological developments.

5. To generate awareness amongst rural masses about the alternative uses of bamboo in housing, horticulture, pisciculture, sericulture, apiculture, carpentry, blacksmithy.

6. To create a marketing channel for the local people and to ensure marketing of bamboo products and to act as marketing support unit.

Voluntary organisation working in rural areas with a legal status of a society registered for 3 years under Societies Registration Act or any corresponding State Act or as a Trust under Indian Trusts Act, 1882 or the Charitable and Religious trusts Act, 1920 will be eligible for financial assistance.

Contact

Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology (CAPART)
India Habitat Centre, Zone-V-A, 2nd Floor
Lodhi Road, New Delhi-110 003.
Phone No. : 91 - 11 - 2464 2391, 2464 2393, 2464 2395
Fax : 91 - 11 - 2464 8607, 2462 5822
email : capart@caparthq.delhi.nic.in
Website : http://capart.nic.in/