The rubber board identifies vast stretch of land in the northeast region to augment the production of natural rubber to meet the demand requirement of 15 lakh tonnes by 2025-26.
Rubber Board Chairman Sawar Dhanania said in a discussion with selected journalists that to reduce the dependence on imports and earn valuable foreign exchange, rubber plantation will be increased across the country where there are favourable conditions to grow rubber.
Dhanaria added that the rubber board is mapping large tracts of empty land in North Eastern states and West Bengal to start the plantation of natural rubber to meet the domestic demand.
Notably, Tripura is the second largest natural rubber producing state in the country after Kerala.
According to the Rubber board Tripura currently cultivates natural rubber on 89,264 hectare of land and produces 93,371 tonnes of rubber annually.
More than 20,000 hectares of new land will be covered with new rubber plantations in Assam and Tripura.
The total area under natural rubber in the seven northeastern States is around 1.89 lakh hectares of which over 60,000 hectares are accounted for by Tripura, which was the first non-traditional area in the country to experiment with rubber cultivation.
Around 85% of rubber production in the country is accounted for by Kerala and some parts of Tamil Nadu, which are considered as traditional areas of rubber cultivation.
Assam has around 58,000 hectares under rubber, while Meghalaya has around 16,300 hectares under the crop.
Nagaland has around 15,000 hectares under rubber, while the other States have around 5,000 hectares each under the crop.
The total production in northeastern states is around 1.12 lakh tonnes.
"NE-MITRA" (North East Mission of Tyre Industry for Rubber Augmentation) designed by the Board to develop rubber plantations in newer areas with financial support from consuming industries, Dhanania added.
Dhanaria added that the union government felt the need to increase natural rubber production in the country by expanding rubber cultivation to non-traditional areas, including the northeast region and traditional regions.
According to the Rubber Board, India produced 7.12 lakh tonnes of natural rubber last year, down from a peak of over nine lakh tonnes in 2012-13.
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