FIPPI (Federation of Indian plywood and Panel Industries), an apex body of Plywood and Panel manufacturers in India gave a representation to MoEF&CC and sought to revise Wood Based Industry (Establishment and Regulation) Guidelines 2017 immediately and enact an act to promote growing of tree outside forests providing altogether separate ecosystem for farm wood from agroforestry that is ‘Growing Trees Outside Forests (Promotion & Facilitation) Act 2021.
On behalf of FIPPI, President Mr Sajjan Bhajanka met with Mr Prakash Javadekar and discussed the issues faced by industry in the development of plywood & Panel Industry based on Agro Foresty Wood. In the letter submitted to MoEF&CC it has also been requested to remove restrictions on felling and transporting of all ToF/ industry linked plantation wood, uniformly across the country, by amending section 2 of Indian Forest Act (as has been done in case of bamboo) and issue guidelines to enable rising of industry linked plantations in FDC and degraded forests land (required for long rotation species which cannot be grown under agro forestry).
Mr Sajjan Bhajanka said that with the government policy to promote agro-forestry to increase the income of farmers in the country and to increase the raw material availability problems MOEF&CC has already initiated the process to revise the National Forest policy to facilitate speedy development of this sector.
“Now almost 90 percent of wood requirement of the industry is being met from trees grown outside the forest (TOF). To sustain this Agro-Forestry drive in India, the Government has to make sure that enough processing industries viz. veneering, sawmilling, Plywood, MDF & Particle board are set up in the country, so that the increased supply of such short duration timber is sustained, integrated to industries and will enable farmers to get the remunerative prices for their produce.