From Our Correspondent
AGARTALA: To ensure reasonable price, the IL&FS Cluster Development Initiative Ltd here has embarked on a mission to bring bamboo stick makers under one umbrella.
Currently, bamboo stick makers are getting only .75 paisa against each polished stick whereas it costs over 1 paisa at Banglaore, considered hub of incense stick making factories.
Though over 2 lakh artisans have been meeting country’s 70 percent stick demand (25000 MT), they remained deprive of getting reasonable price.
To break the jinx, the IF&FS under its cluster development initiative came up with an idea to organize bamboo stick makers across the state. “Our plan is to bring all the artisans under one umbrella- Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) by forming societies or SHGs so that they could bargain with big players in the incense stick making industry”, said a Senior Coordinator of IL&FS who is actively associated with the plan here on Tuesday.
“There are 25 units in Tripura who are involved in perfuming locally made sticks and of them two companies- Nisha and Tirupati have already earned goodwill for their products”, he said.
Official figures indicate, there has been significant improvement in the value addition to bamboo stick making in Tripura since 2007. The total turn over of incense stick business has scaled up to Rs. 76.99 crore in 2010-11 from Rs. 12.90 crore in the year 2007. “This evidently indicates the IL&FS cluster initiative brings a positive change in the incense stick making business”, he said.