• What is freedom to a forest dweller in Manipur looking for money to bribe his way to a Transit Pass that will help him sell his home-grown bamboo? 
• What is freedom to a small entrepreneur in Madhya Pradesh who faces more struggles in buying bamboo from Nagaland than from China? 
• What is freedom to the Gram Sabha Pradhan in Orissa who still has to wade through a forest of procedures and regulations to exercise the rights guaranteed to his community by the Forest Rights Act?

Questions such as these continue to haunt the populace as we commemorate the third World Bamboo Day on September 18. Despite the political freedom won by our nation’s forefathers in 1947, economic independence from the treacherous License-Permit-Quota-Raj came as late as 1991. As a result of which, the small and marginalized farmers who rely on bamboo for their livelihood continue to bear the burden imposed on them by the Transit-Permit-Raj. On this occasion, Centre for Civil Society (CCS) and South Asia Bamboo Foundation (SABF) have urged the government to remove bureaucratic and institutional hurdles that seriously curb the prospering of bamboo in India which, according to the Planning Commission of India, has potential to provide employment to about 50 million people.

With enormous potential for employment generation, industrial use and environmental benefits, as documented by the Planning Commission, bamboo—also known as ‘Green Gold’— has 1,500 documented uses and occupies 12.8 percent of the total forested area in India.  For the 12th five-year plan, the sub-group working on NTFP (Non Timber Forest Produce, which includes Bamboo) and their sustainable management, estimated that 275 million poor rural people in India— about 23 percent of the total population—depend on NTFPs for at least part of their subsistence and cash livelihoods.

However, being governed by a complex web of forest laws and policies, there are serious restrictions from the state on cultivation, harvesting and transportation of bamboo in particular and NTFP in general. Consequently, the industrial and employment potential of the great grass remains untapped.

Parth J Shah, President Centre for Civil Society (CCS), has published a memo “Bamboo Regulations in India: the Need for Reforms” (Link: http://goo.gl/iUhiX4) highlighting the current state of laws and policies that affect bamboo in India, with the goal of setting out a broad framework for reforms that would pave the way for sustainable development of the country’s bamboo sector. The memo also examines the opportunities and restrictions in India’s bamboo sector and surveys bamboo regulations in China and Southeast Asia, giving comparative solutions to the problems plaguing bamboo in India.

SABF has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighting the environmental and industrial advantages of bamboo, suggested setting up of a National Bamboo Development Board - on the lines of those of coffee, coir, tea, rubber – advocated a favorable overhaul of the existing state policies, and exemption of import duty on bamboo for 10 years.

It is our constant endeavor to uplift the status of bamboo in India so that millions of farmers and tribals truly benefit from this wondrous grass and no other World Bamboo Day goes unmarked.