{"id":17187,"date":"2023-09-15T17:18:15","date_gmt":"2023-09-15T11:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/?p=17187"},"modified":"2023-09-15T17:18:18","modified_gmt":"2023-09-15T11:48:18","slug":"rubber-cultivation-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/15-09-2023\/rubber-cultivation-in-india","title":{"rendered":"Rubber Cultivation in India"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS3\/Agriculture<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Context<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The <strong>Rubber Board<\/strong> is implementing a project to expand the area under natural rubber in the Northeastern States.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Rubber Board<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It is a<strong> statutory body<\/strong> constituted under the <strong>Rubber Act 1947<\/strong>, for the overall development of the rubber industry in the country.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The <strong>Rubber Production and Marketing (Amendment) Act, 1954,<\/strong> amended the name of the Board <strong>as \u2018The Rubber Board\u2019.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It functions under the <strong>Ministry of Commerce &amp; Industry<\/strong> of the Government of India.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <strong>Board\u2019s headquarters<\/strong> is located at <strong>Kottayam in Kerala<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>As per<strong> Section 4(3) of the Rubber Act 1947, <\/strong>the Board shall consist of a Chairman and other members.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>About Natural Rubber<\/strong><br><\/span><br>&#8211; It is the most versatile industrial raw material of plant origin. <strong>Latex,<\/strong> the economic produce is harvested by controlled wounding (termed as <strong>tapping<\/strong>) on the bark of the tree.<br>&#8211; <strong>Origin:<\/strong> <strong>The Hevea brasiliensis <\/strong>is the main source of natural rubber, native to the Amazon river basin, and was introduced to tropical Asia and Africa by the British Government in the late 19th century.<br>&#8211; <strong>Agro-climatic conditions:<\/strong> The rubber tree grows in a <strong>wide range of agro climates and soil conditions<\/strong>, if well-distributed <strong>rainfall of about 200 cm<\/strong> is received annually.<br><br><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Rubber Producing Regions in India<\/strong><br><\/span><br>&#8211; In India, 8.5 lakh hectares under rubber cultivation, and almost 5 lakh hectares was in Kerala and Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu and 1 lakh hectares was in Tripura.<br>1. The northeastern states, particularly Tripura and Assam, account for over 16% of the total production.<br>2. The share of Kerala has come down from around 90% to 78%. The non-traditional regions of Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra have a combined share of 6% in the total output.<br><br><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Three Zones of Rubber Cultivation:<\/strong><br><\/span><br>&#8211; <strong>Traditional region<\/strong> comprising Kerala state and Kanyakumari District of Tamil Nadu;<br>&#8211; <strong>Non-traditional region <\/strong>comprising all states other than Kerala state and Kanyakumari District of Tamil Nadu and North East region; and<br>&#8211; <strong>Northeastern region<\/strong> comprising Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.<br>1. The potential in northeastern States was for 4 lakh hectares. Considering challenges such as landslides, it was decided to plant rubber on 2 lakh hectares.<br><br><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Properties and Usage:<\/strong><br><\/span><br><strong>Latex contains up to 40% natural rubber<\/strong>, the rest being water and other constituents, showing the <strong>visco-elastic properties<\/strong>.<br>1. When <strong>Natural rubber combines with sulphur<\/strong>, (known as <strong>vulcanisation<\/strong>) it is converted into <strong>elastic <\/strong>having very <strong>high tensile strength and comparatively low elongation<\/strong>. Its hardness and abrasion resistance will be higher than the raw rubber.<br>&#8211; Nearly<strong> 65% of natural rubber is consumed by the automobile industry<\/strong>, as it is the main component in heavy duty tyres and tubes. It also has <strong>engineering application<\/strong> in shock absorption, vibration isolation and road surfacing.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Government\u2019s Initiatives:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The Rubber Plantation Development Scheme: <\/strong>It has components for promoting rubber cultivation in traditional and non-traditional regions, mainly in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Odisha and West Bengal.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Later, the Scheme for Rubber Development in Northeast focused on new planting of rubber in the North Eastern States.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Rubber Production Incentive Scheme (RPIS): <\/strong>It provides <strong>financial support<\/strong> and technical assistance for planting of new rubber plants.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It guarantees a minimum price of Rs.150 per kilogram for rubber.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>NE Mitra scheme: <\/strong>The Rubber Board, in association with major tyre companies, is implementing it to contemplate fresh cultivation of rubber in 200,000 hectares in five years.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme: <\/strong>The <strong>All India Rubber Industries Association (AIRIA)<\/strong> is formulating <strong>a PLI to promote rubber goods production in the country,<\/strong> and expected to give an impetus to the rubber goods industry in India, which is now emerging as an alternative to China.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/business\/rubber-board-to-increase-area-under-rubber-in-northeast\/article67307179.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source: TH<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Syllabus: GS3\/Agriculture Context Rubber Board About Natural Rubber&#8211; It is the most versatile industrial raw material of plant origin. Latex, the economic produce is harvested by controlled wounding (termed as tapping) on the bark of the tree.&#8211; Origin: The Hevea brasiliensis is the main source of natural rubber, native to the Amazon river basin, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17187"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17206,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17187\/revisions\/17206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}