Guwahati, June 16: With reports of sporadic bamboo flowering in Mizoram, the ministry of commerce and industry has declared free export of muli bamboo to facilitate the marketing of the harvested crop.

Sources said the offer would be valid till March 31, 2007 under the Export and Import Policy under Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act 1993, subject to transit rules of the concerned states.

Muli bamboo (melocanna baccifera) grows over an area of approximately 18,000 square km in Mizoram. The total area under muli bamboo in the Northeast is 18,000 square km and the total stock is 26 million tonnes, of which only 10 million tonnes can be harvested.

Sources said to facilitate harvesting of the standing crop before flowering, all necessary arrangements will have to be made to facilitate its transport.

Effective ways of transporting the harvested crop will have to be worked out by establishing links with paper mills such as the Hindustan Paper Corporation Ltd. Promoting bamboo-based cottage industry and establishing chipping and pulping units in the small-scale industrial sector will also figure in the promotion plans.

Experts have suggested that an action plan would have to be formulated for regeneration of the flowered areas. The plan would involve introduction of economically-important bamboo species.

A steering committee has been formed under the ministry of environment and forests to deal with the prospective flowering in the Northeast. Secretary of the ministry will chair the committee.

The committee will have three focus areas ? harvesting, regeneration of the area and rodent control.

The ministry has agreed to allocate a sum of Rs 85 crores for 2005-2009. The action plan stated that both Tripura and Mizoram have indicated their export plans to the Centre.

Tripura has already exempted timber transit rules for bamboo. It has also drawn up a 10-year plan from 2002-03 to 2012-13 for harvesting approximately 1,31,000 hectares of area.

The committee has advised the states to conduct the sale of standing crop before flowering through open auctions so that the infrastructure requirements for facilitating extraction is met by the bidders and the sale proceeds can be subsequently utilised for regeneration of the area.

The Centre had allocated an amount of Rs 40 crore to Mizoram as a special problem grant.