Considering the growing demand for bamboo shoots as an Asian delicacy in starred hotels, the Tripura government is planning to commercially produce the vegetable.
Sources said that the state government had initially selected an area of 60 hectares at Belbari in West Tripura district to cultivate a special variety of bamboo for commercial exploitation.
"The State Bamboo Mission is giving all-out help to the project," BDO of Jirania block in which the area falls, Argha Saha said.
Indraneel Bhaumik, Associate Professor of Economics in Tripura University says that Tripura is one of the best bamboo producing states in the country.
"If planned and scientific cultivation is started, it would bring a balance to the demand and supply of bamboo and open a new opportunity of import of shoots," he said.
The mission has decided to cultivate a species found in Thailand - Gendu Calamus - which makes palatable dishes, Saha says.
Sources in the Mission said it had already made a test field of cultivating bamboo shoots at Peratia in Gomati district which emerged as a successful model which would be practiced at Belbari.
The programme manager of Bamboo Mission, Ramnarayan Pande, said self-help groups would be engaged in producing the plants and all technical and monetary helps rendered to them.
A traditional forest vegetable in China for more than 2,500 years, bamboo shoots are not only delicious, but also rich in nutrients, and rank among the five most popular healthcare foods in the world.
In Japan, the bamboo shoot is known as the king of forest vegetables.
The shoots are eaten very widely by the Mongoloid people in the whole Northeast and of late are also being widely consumed by the non-Mongoloid people.
