Bamboo in Orissa: Trade and Livelihood Perspective - Vasundhara

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Gopal Mohapatra, a businessman of Nayagarh is said to be the pioneer in ensuring supply
from Andhra about 20 years ago. The advantages of purchasing bamboo from Andhra are
many, like:
• Cheaper price
• Customer-friendly policy of the Andhra Forest Department
• Hardly any need for bribing anybody.
Salia bamboo is procured from Andhra. Each such standard piece costs about Rs.14 here as
against Rs.18 to 19 for the same if obtained from OFDC. Hence, the betel farmers can get
bamboo at a cheaper price. In fact, procurement from Andhra is said to have helped these
farmers significantly particularly after the flood of 1982 which destroyed the local bamboo
bushes on one hand, and dependency on OFDC was proving costlier on the other.
The actual procurement price of a bamboo piece comes to less than Rs.2 in Andhra, but
added to this are taxes of various kind plus transportation charges. To reduce the cost of
transportation per piece, the traders try to load the trucks to the maximum possible limit for
which they pay penalty charges (popularly known as ‘dala open; height’; i.e., the volume
has crossed the limit on various sides) @Rs.800/truck a part of which is taken by the
penalising officials unofficially(i.e., without receipt). Each truck-load may contain 3000 to
5000 thin pieces or 500 very thick pieces of long bamboo weighing about 12 to 13 tonnes.
The bamboo from Khunta-Udala area that costs Rs.30/piece at the local depot is actually
procured from the grower @Rs.25/piece. Added to this is the transportation charge
@Rs.25/piece plus some other expenses like bribe demanded at check gates, etc.(if any),
and hence the sale price at Kundhei(near Kakatpur) comes to about Rs.60/piece. This
bamboo is not salia but sundarkani or some other species. Since 1 piece of sundarkani is
equivalent to about 5 pieces of salia in terms of length and thickness, hence people do not
hesitate to pay a higher price for it.
Unlike industrial bamboo, supply of long bamboo from Khunta-Udala area is a round-theyear
business since moisture loss is not a criterion in this case to affect the price and use at
the end market. On an average, the rate of supply is about 10 truckloads per day, each
containing about 600 to 700 pieces and weighing approx. 12-13 tons. The destinations are
Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Pattamundai, etc., and there are more or less 20 traders of Khunta-
Udala area involved in this supply network.
Earlier some traders used to procure bamboo from Andhra and get their permit issued for
delivery at Kolkata(West Bengal) so as to evade the sales tax to be charged on it in Orissa
in case of a delivery in Orissa. Needless to say, they actually delivered their material in
Orissa itself but saved some money showing the permit upto Kolkata. However, they were
caught for their fraud after which this malpractice has almost stopped. Now some of these
people have resorted to another alternative. They have ensured the supply of smuggled
forest bamboo from the Hindol-Narsinghpur area either showing false certificates for
tenant’s bamboo, or through some other means, which necessarily involves a good nexus
with the local officials of Forest Department. This bamboo costs them less and hence they
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