National Rubber Mission in offing to boost domestic production

The planting under the project has already commenced in June 2021, he added.Kerala and Tamil Nadu are the traditional areas for natural rubber plantation in the country.

The Rubber Board on Thursday said it is finalising the contours of a national rubber mission in order to boost domestic production and reduce imports.

Currently, nearly 35 per cent of the domestic demand is met through imports.

''A National Rubber Mission is in the works to produce enough natural rubber within the country so as to meet the demands of domestic industry and minimise import,'' Rubber Board Executive Director K N Raghavan said while addressing the Managing Committee Meeting of Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA).

The proposed mission will target new rubber plantation in 5 lakh hectares of land by 2025-26 with the focus being on non-traditional areas, an official statement quoted Raghavan having said in the meeting.

Nearly 95,000 hectares have been identified for planting in the current financial year, he added.

The tyre industry is all for verdant natural rubber plantation in the country for producing rubber that is qualitatively superior and competitively priced, said ATMA Chairman Satish Sharma.

Select ATMA members are already working with Rubber Board on a collaborative project ''North East Mission of Tyre Industry for Rubber Augmentation (NEMITRA)'' for developing rubber plantations in the North East, he said.

The project aims at developing 2 lakh hectares of rubber plantation in North East and West Bengal in five years. The planting under the project has already commenced in June 2021, he added.

Kerala and Tamil Nadu are the traditional areas for natural rubber plantation in the country. Non-traditional regions include primarily the seven North Eastern states and states such as Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Odisha and West Bengal.

Raghavan clarified that the National Rubber Mission with a target of new rubber plantation in 5 lakh hectares is in addition to the NEMITRA project.

The Rubber Board has already developed seven high yielding clones out of which two are exclusively for North East.

The current area under natural rubber plantation in the country is 8.3 lakh hectares with a tappable area of 7.2 lakh hectares. In 2021-22, domestic natural rubber consumption stood at 12.38 lakh tonnes against production of 7.75 lakh tonnes.