Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Rural Development & Panchayati Raj Shri Narendra Singh Tomar on September 8, 2020 inaugurated by virtual mode 22 bamboo clusters in 9 States (Gujarat, MP, Maharashtra, Odisha, Assam, Nagaland, Tripura, Uttarakhand and Karnataka). A logo for the National Bamboo Mission was also released.
- Keeping in consideration the importance of bamboo, the Indian Forest Act 1927 was amended in the year 2017 to remove bamboo for the category of trees, as a result now anyone can undertake cultivation and business in bamboo and its products. Import policy has also been modified to ensure progress of the bamboo industry in the country.
- The restructured National Bamboo Mission was launched in 2018-19 for holistic development of the complete value chain of the sector.
- The Mission is being implemented in a hub (industry) and spoke model, with the main goal of connecting farmers to markets so as to enable farmer producers to get a ready market for the bamboo grown and to increase supply of appropriate raw material to domestic industry.
- The Mission was launched as a natural corollary of the historic amendment of the Indian Forest Act in 2017, removing bamboo from the definition of trees, hence bamboo grown outside forests no longer need felling and transit permissions.
