Government to promote agar-based industries in North Tripura

Initiative for agar-based Industry

* Forest department taking nodal step

A CORRESPONDENT

AGARTALA: The Tripura government has taken a special initiative to regulate the cultivation of agar in North Tripura district and also to explore possibilities of setting up of agar-based industries. The Forest department has launched a special programme to register all the agar trees in the district as a first step in this regard.

Some industrialists and traders from Assam have been taking away these trees from this area by paying a minimum price to the tree owners; and the State government also has not been getting any revenue from this costly forest product. Now the government has decided to collect revenue from it as well as set up industries based on it.

The soil of North Tripura district is fertile for agar cultivation and a large number of agar trees are growing in this district. According to a rough estimation of the Forest department, over 50,000 agar trees are there in the Kadamtala Block alone.

The Department organized a workshop at Kadamtala on Thursday to apprise the land owners about the process for registering the agar trees on their lands. Principal Chief Conservator of Forest A Rastogi explained the procedure to be followed for registering the agar trees.

Inaugurating the workshop, Tinku Roy, Chairman of the Tripura Industrial Development Corporation (TIDC) dwelt on the future prospect of the agar-based industry in the area. Among those present on the occasion were Additional District Magistrate Nagendra Bebbarma, and District Forest Officer Naresh Babu. That the new initiative has evoked positive response from the agar cultivators can be gauged from the fact that many have already submitted applications to register the agar trees on their lands. Though the agar tree grows naturally in the area, people were totally unaware about its potential.

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