Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s call to buy bamboo products from the Northeast region is strategically significant as it advances the country’s climate action goal by promoting an environment-friendly, renewable and low-carbon material even as it strengthens the livelihoods of bamboo artisans. It was a calibrated message linking consumption, climate policy, and rural economics in a way that aligns closely with the United Nations’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). What may appear as a lifestyle suggestion is, in fact, a strategic nudge towards a greener and more inclusive economic model. The data underscores why bamboo is central to this vision. India is the world’s second largest producer of bamboo, with over 136 species spread across nearly 13.96 million hectares. Yet, despite this natural advantage, India accounts for only about 4% of global bamboo product exports while continuing to import bamboo-based goods worth roughly Rupees 3,600 crore annually.
This mismatch highlights a structural gap between resources availability and value-chain development, one that PM Modi’s call implicitly seeks to address. From a sustainability standpoint, bamboo offers a compelling case. It is among the fastest-growing plants in the world, capable of rapid regeneration and significant carbon sequestration. Its versatility-ranging from construction material and textiles to biofuel and packaging, positions it as a viable alternative to carbon-intensive and non-biodegradable materials. This directly aligns with SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production) and SDG 13 (climate action), particularly as India confronts mounting plastic waste and environmental stress. The North East Crane and Bamboo Development council (NECBDC) estimates that the bamboo handicraft and lifestyle sector is valued at ₹2,500 crore with rapid e-commerce growth. The NECBDC’s document ‘Towards a Sustainable Bamboo Economy: Investment Prospects and Pathways 2025’ highlights that women constitute over 40% of bamboo artisans in the region, engaged in handicrafts, furniture and household items, but they struggle to scale up their enterprises due to lack of design inputs, machinery access and markets. The business model proposed by NECBDC for women-led bamboo clusters offers a significant potential of generating direct employment of 200-300 women per cluster and an additional 400-500 indirect employments in supply chain and distribution for women-led enterprises engaged in making handcrafted furniture, utility products, lamps, baskets and lifestyle accessories as each of these clusters will require capital investment to the tune of ₹1-2 crore, the business model needs clarity on the flow of the required fund. The women’s SHGs to be mobilised for these clusters can be motivated to pool various financial assistance provided by the government to the groups to raise the working capital which the NECBDC estimates at ₹20-30 lakh for each cluster. The women’s SHGs will be keen to channelise their savings into the creation of this working capital only when they are assured of a steady market for their bamboo products and remunerative prices for all items.
Recent policy and industrial developments reinforce this trajectory. India’s first bamboo-based biorefinery in Assam, inaugurated in 2025, is designed to process 300,000 tonnes of bamboo annually and produce bioethanol and green energy, benefitting over 30,000 families. Similarly, state-level initiatives such as Maharashtra’s ₹50,000 crore bamboo industry policy aim to generate up to five lakh jobs in the coming decade. These figures indicate that bamboo is no longer confined to handicraft, it is emerging as a pillar of India’s green industrial transition. The socio-economic dimension is equally significant. Government frameworks like the National Bamboo Mission explicitly identify bamboo as a tool for rural development, livelihood generation, and tribal empowerment. In regions like the Northeast, where bamboo is abundant, this sector has the potential to bridge persistent development gaps without replicating the environmental costs of heavy industry. However, the promise of bamboo remains under-realised. Fragmented supply chains, lack of processing infrastructure, and limited branding continue to constrain the sector. Even as startups and enterprises innovate-replacing plastics with bamboo alternatives and attracting investment-the scale remains insufficient relative to potential. Without targeted interventions in logistics, technology, and export promotion, consumer appeals alone cannot transform the industry. While the PM’s personal appeal will motivate the consumers to patronise the Northeast artisans, their actual purchase decisions will primarily be driven by their individual choices and preferences. Gaining an accurate sense of market sentiment is crucial for women artisan’s groups to formulate effective business strategies. Lessons must be drawn from the Common Facility Centre created for artisans of various handicraft items, which is underutilised or unutilised due to weak market linkage and the lack of effective business strategy. This calls for revisiting the skill-development initiatives in the bamboo sector to assess if the artisans, especially women artisans, have acquired the competencies demanded by modern consumer markets.
{{/usCountry}}Recent policy and industrial developments reinforce this trajectory. India’s first bamboo-based biorefinery in Assam, inaugurated in 2025, is designed to process 300,000 tonnes of bamboo annually and produce bioethanol and green energy, benefitting over 30,000 families. Similarly, state-level initiatives such as Maharashtra’s ₹50,000 crore bamboo industry policy aim to generate up to five lakh jobs in the coming decade. These figures indicate that bamboo is no longer confined to handicraft, it is emerging as a pillar of India’s green industrial transition. The socio-economic dimension is equally significant. Government frameworks like the National Bamboo Mission explicitly identify bamboo as a tool for rural development, livelihood generation, and tribal empowerment. In regions like the Northeast, where bamboo is abundant, this sector has the potential to bridge persistent development gaps without replicating the environmental costs of heavy industry. However, the promise of bamboo remains under-realised. Fragmented supply chains, lack of processing infrastructure, and limited branding continue to constrain the sector. Even as startups and enterprises innovate-replacing plastics with bamboo alternatives and attracting investment-the scale remains insufficient relative to potential. Without targeted interventions in logistics, technology, and export promotion, consumer appeals alone cannot transform the industry. While the PM’s personal appeal will motivate the consumers to patronise the Northeast artisans, their actual purchase decisions will primarily be driven by their individual choices and preferences. Gaining an accurate sense of market sentiment is crucial for women artisan’s groups to formulate effective business strategies. Lessons must be drawn from the Common Facility Centre created for artisans of various handicraft items, which is underutilised or unutilised due to weak market linkage and the lack of effective business strategy. This calls for revisiting the skill-development initiatives in the bamboo sector to assess if the artisans, especially women artisans, have acquired the competencies demanded by modern consumer markets.
{{/usCountry}}The NECBDC’s own assessment highlights a grim picture: Even though the region has a large bamboo artisan base involving lakhs of individuals artisans, only 5-10% have exposure to modern bamboo technologies. This ground reality demands prioritising the establishment of more skill development and training centres for the bamboo sector in the region, as proposed in the document, to fill up the gap and push the artisan base to move up from the traditional subsistence-scale business model to industry-scale engagement. A steady supply of affordable electricity to common facility centres of these clusters, as price volatility of raw materials can erode profitability, leading to an increase in prices of final value-added products, creating negative market sentiments and potentially dampening consumer demand. As e-markets provide wider options for the online consumers to choose from, sustaining favourable market sentiments for bamboo products from the region is critical to ensure the long-term viability of the bamboo artisans’ business ventures. Exemption of bamboo grown in non-forest area from the definition of tree, through an amendment of the Indian Forest Act pushed by the central government in 2017, created new opportunities for the communities to increase production of raw bamboo required to cater to the rising demand of bamboo artisans and bamboo-based industries. Boosting bamboo production through agroforestry and community bamboo nurseries in the region remains a pivotal to closing the country’s wide demand supply gap and reducing import dependence on China and Vietnam for meeting domestic demand for bamboo products.
For Assam, the way forward lies in bridging the gap between design and innovation. Strengthening design innovation processing infrastructure, and enhancing market linkages-both domestic and international are essential. Equally significant is preserving the traditional knowledge systems that underpin bamboo craftmanship, ensuring that modernisation does not come at the cost of cultural erosion. If nurtured with the right policies and investments, Assam’s bamboo economy can become a model for linking local livelihoods with global goals.
(The views expressed are personal)
This article is authored by Monalisa Deka, manager, Aerospace Division, Manekshaw Centre, IIIT Delhi.