state | tripura
Growing with rubber
When earning a livelihood becomes a challenge, farmers
in Tripura eke out a living as rubber planters. Ratnadeep
Choudhury delves
into the growing
economy of that
state.
Over the past few years the Left Front
government in Tripura has had many
achievements to talk about, yet the state
still remains largely underdeveloped.
The indigenous tribals still starve for
the basic requirements and unemploy-
ment in the rural belts seems to be the
biggest hurdle. But there is one answer
to it - Rubber plantations.
Rubber plantations have of late start-
ed to change the face of Tripura’s rural
economy. There are many who might
contradict this but if you meet Mukto-
mohan Jamatia of Tripura’s Rayabari
you are sure to oppose all contradic-
tions. Muktomohan planted his first
rubber tree in 1986. Now he has plan-
tations in over 25 villages and owns
280 rubber trees. He even earns up to
Rs 25 thousand a month.
“People here were very poor and
were earning two square meals a day
was a Herculean task. Militants were
all over. Everybody started earning
through rubber and now militancy is
out completely,” says Muktomohan. It
was not an easy task. It took Mukto-
mohan nearly seven years to convince
local people that rubber cultivation has
a future in this state.
More than three decades ago, when
the first rubber sapling was planted
in the hilly terrain of Tripura, nobody
perhaps imagined that there lied the
long and strong root of a robust state
30 June 08
economy of the 21st century. Not only
that, some political pundits felt that the
rubber plantation was only a hot po-
litical issue and would foster no real
hope to change the state’s economy. A
school of thought felt that these ever-
green plants would ruin the indigenous
tribal cultivation system - Jhum. Some
environmentalists also joined them
and put forward their strong reserva-
tion that huge rubber plantations would
substantially hamper the state’s well-
being. Proving all of them wrong, rub-
ber orchards have firmly held the helm
and have ballooned into a pillar of the
state’s economy.
The Northeastern region in gen-
eral and Tripura in particular, has the
potential to transform itself into the
world’s largest natural rubber produc-
ing region. Tripura is presently India’s
second largest rubber producer after
Kerala and the country’s second rub-
ber-based industrial park is being set
up in Tripura to boost the rubber indus-
try in the state.
Buoyed with the successful journey,
the Tripura Rubber Mission (TRM),
which was constituted in 2006, has set
up an ambitious target to spread the
rubber plantations to 85,094 hectares
during the next the two decades. “Fu-
ture expansion and growth of natural
rubber in India lies in the northeast,
which is agro-climatically most suit-
able for rubber cultivation,” Sajen Pe-
ter, chairman of the Rubber Board of
India told a news agency.
An estimated 60,000 hectares of land
is now under rubber cultivation and in
the next five years the area under the
“liquid gold” cultivation would be
doubled. As a matter of fact, in 1972,
A Plantation site
A collection pot hangs
on a rubber tree.
A new job
Farmers cut the rub-
ber plants for the la-
tex sap.
the total area under rubber plantations
was merely 103 hectares and in 1998 it
was extended to 25780 hectares.
Moreover, the Tripura Forest Devel-
opment and Plantation Corporation
(TFDPC) is holding the lion’s share of
rubber plantations with 11,344 hect-
ares while another semi-government
agency the Tripura Rubber Plantation
Corporation (TRPC) possesses 4,509
hectares. Most importantly, individual
farmers are also enthusiastically com-
ing forward and have already begun
plantations covering 12,880 hectares.
Over the last three decades, rubber
productivity has increased more than
five times. In the 70s, the annual pro-
duction of rubber was 200 to 300 Kg
per hectare while at present it has gone
well above 1000 kg and makes a total
production of around 20,000 MT every
year. Rubber plantations also gradually
shape the rural economy in the tribal
areas as it is already associated with
1029 tribal families.
India is presently doing very well in
terms of rubber productivity. “The an-
nual productivity has increased from
only 333 kg to 1,879 kg per hectare,
which is the highest productivity in the
world,” the Rubber Board chief said
while addressing a seminar at Agartala
recently.
The union cabinet earlier approved a
4.13 billion rupees-scheme for re-plan-
tation and fresh cultivation of rubber in
the non-traditional areas, mainly in the
northeastern states.
An assessment made by the Rubber
Board indicates that rubber could be
state | tripura
cultivated in about 450,000 hectares in
the seven northeastern states, mostly in
Tripura, Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram
and Arunachal Pradesh.
According to the Rubber Board and
the National Bureau of Soil Survey and
Land Use Planning, an area of 100,000
hectares is suitable for rubber planta-
tions in Tripura.
To boost the industry, India’s second
rubber-based industrial park is be-
ing set up in Tripura to bring about a
natural revolution in the elastic poly-
mer industry. The rubber park, a joint
venture between the Tripura Industrial
Development Corporation (TIDC) and
the Rubber Board, is the second of its
kind in the country after the rubber
park at Irapuram in Kerala, where over
520,000 hectares are now under culti-
vation.
Infrastructure Leasing and Financial
Services (ILFS) is the project manage-
ment agency of the park, where at least
20 rubber-based industrial projects
would be set up within the next three
years.
“The rubber park is to be built in an
area of 50 acres of land in the Bodh-
junnagar industrial growth centre in
western Tripura and over Rs.500 mil-
lion are expected to be invested in the
park over a period of three years,” says
Pabitra Kar, chairman of the TIDC.
With the absence of any big indus-
tries, Tripura now looks set to walk on
a new track of development with rub-
ber. So, the rubbery road seems to take
Tripuara on a long drive.
(With agency inputs)
June 08 31