The United Planters Association of Southern India (Upasi) has urged the Centre to come up with immediate ‘life saving support’ measures for the rubber growers.
Lamenting that the crisis in natural rubber plantations continued unabated, Vijayan Rajes, Upasi president, said in a statement issued in Coonoor on Monday, that though the efforts taken by the Centre to formulate a National Rubber Policy was worthy of appreciation, immediate measures were needed to curtail the unrestricted inflow. If not, the natural rubber plantations, which supported over a million growers and about half a million workers directly, would be in dire straits.
Large number of small and medium growers had already stopped tapping rubber. This was evident from the production figures which in September 2014 dropped to 60,000 tonnes from 80,000 tonnes during the corresponding period last year.
He expressed the fear that unremunerative prices and the constantly increasing cost of labour, inputs and fertilizers would make more growers stay away from tapping.
Import of natural rubber during the current fiscal was estimated to be around 4 lakh tonnes.
If it happened, it would devastate natural rubber growers. So far, 2.26 lakh tonnes had already entered the country.
Welcoming the move to rubberise roads, he said that the need of the hour was efforts to stabilise prices.
– The Hindu
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