Pulp plunder
The Indian paper industry (325 paper mills with a total installed capacity of 3.3 million t) meets around 60 per cent of its fibrous raw material requirements from bamboo, supply of which has been dwindling. Busy wooing the industry, state governments have often given bamboo forests 0 lease at throwaway prices. The State of India's Environment: the Second Citizens' Report, published by CSE (1984-85), cites some significant cases: "The Orient Paper Mills, Amali, was initially given bamboo at... 37 paise per t by the Madhya Pradesh government. The Seshashayee Paper Mills in Tamil Nadu was paying Rs 6.89 per t until 1970, Rs 11 from 1970 to 1975, and Rs 22 plus five per cent for administrative expenses since 1975. Paper mills in Karnataka were paying Rs 15 per t for bamboo, when the poor could purchase it in the open market only at Rs 1,200 per t."
Many governments have woken up to the sad situation and revised the rates. But the damage persists due to injudicious and inefficient extraction, and arbitrary royalty rates, often biased in favour of industry. Paper mill agents cut immature culms, clear- felling entire clumps, leaving no scope for regeneration.
Way back in 1885, M K Raina, chairperson of the Indian Paper Manufacturers' Association had said, "The crucial problem is the drying up of raw material resources." According to a market study by the International Credit and Investment Corporation of India: "Units in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka already face - severe raw material shortages. All these states import bamboo from Assam at a cost of Rs 1,500 to Rs 1,600 per t. Environmentalists' predictions that without scientific planning of artificial plantations, Assam's bamboo clumps would die a natural death within a few years have come true. Arunachal's largely untouched reserves are luring industrialists now.
The scarcity brought about by uncontrolled extraction has given rise to a 'conflict of interests' between the industrial and traditional sectors as neither of their requirements are being fully met. "Extraction by one sector directly affects availability to the other," says Chundamannil, referring to the raw material short- ages faced by paper mills and rayon factories in Kerala and the impoverishment of the state's bamboo-dependent communities as cases in point.
The difference of interests has reached flashpoint in many places. For instance, in Bhandara (Maharashtra), traditional bamboo mat and basket weavers called burads were deprived of their raw material when the government curtailed their free entry into the forests. Their licence fees gradually increased, and by the mid 80s, they had to pay Rs 175 for 150 bamboo allotted per month. Anyone caught cutting bamboo was fined, while at the same time large bamboo tracts were leased out to paper mills. Irate burads began a struggle and have prevented the contractors' trucks from operating in the region.
Scientists and environmentalists have pointed out that if at all bamboo has to be extracted for paper mills, it should be done scientifically - by methods like strict implementation of compartmental felling in cycles. Interference in forests of traditional users will inevitably engender trouble. To reduce the stranglehold on bamboo forests, alternatives like a greater use of bagasse, recycling of paper and more efficient technology are being offered.