Bamboo sticks are used by Agarbathi manufacturers for rolling raw Agarbathies. The Agarbathi industry provides employment for over 50 lakh persons, most of them are women. In Karnataka, it is one of the largest craft industries with an estimated export turn over of Rs. 250.00 crores per annum. There are over 350 popular Agarbathi manufacturing companies in Karnataka. Although Karnataka was once the largest producer of Agarbathies with plentiful availability of raw material, the state is forced to import raw materials such as bamboo sticks from Assam, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. In view of the difficulties faced by the Agarbathi industry in procuring good quality machine made bamboo sticks at competitive price, it is proposed to set up a fully equipped Training cum Production centre by Shri V.R. Deshpande Memorial Trust at Haliyal, which has the necessary expertise in Agarbathi bamboo sticks making, creating employment opportunities in and around Haliyal Taluka of Uttara Kannada district. More over Haliyal is surrounded by Bamboo forest having ample raw material.
These Agarbathi bamboo sticks shall be supplied to Self Help Group persons (who have been trainedin Agabathi making) through Agarbathi exporters, which will help additional employment opportunities for SHG Women, who would roll Agarbathi by getting raw material from Agarbathi exporters and selling back to them the finished Agarbathies, working on piece rate basis.
This project proposal is proposed to create export infra structure for Agarbathi export.
Scope:
The market for this customer product is growing rapidly both in domestic and international markets. Consumer preference for the product lays on quality and good finish, which is possible to achieve only with the availability of finely finished bamboo sticks. Currently, bamboo sticks used for making Agarbathies are procured from Assam @ Rs. 48/- per kg. In the North-Eastern states it is understood that bamboo is supplied by the Government to the tribal groups at concessional rates.
Currently many of the exporting agarbathi manufacturers are importing machine made bamboo sticks from Vietnam. Hence there is good scope for setting up Bamboo sticks manufacturing Unit using the locally available Bamboos procured from the State Forest Department as import substitution.
Facilities:
A building of built up area 2500 Sq.Ft. along with the necessary machineries and power backup facility has been created.