Government urged to formulate policies to promote Agar trade

From a Correspondent

JORHAT, March 19: ASGAA (All Sanchi Growers’ Association of Assam) members headed by JP Dabral, chief patron of ASGAA, president Lakheshwar Bordoloi and Bikash Borah, general secretary, through a press meet organized at the Jorhat Press Club in Jorhat on Saturday claimed that Assam was sitting on a Rs 10,00,000-crore goldmine and categorically stated that the next revolution in Assam would happen through Agarwood.

Addressing media persons, the collective leadership of ASGAA opined, “As per government reports of 2003-04, there were about one crore Agarwood trees in Assam grown in private land. There are hardly any Sanchi trees in forest land. The minimal price that a grower gets for a tree conservatively is Rs 5,000 only. Assam alone has over 5,000 crores of Agarwood trees, and if we add another one crore trees of the neighbouring States, the total value of the trees of the Northeast region stands at Rs 10,000 crore.”

“There is ample scope for expansion of Agarwood trees in the tea garden areas where tress are used for shade. While the total potential is about 10 crore trees in the tea gardens at the rate of 150 to 170 trees per acre for shade in 6,00,000 acres of tea estates, at least one crore trees can be grown immediately. The additiol income from the Agarwood trees may, however, make planters consider Agarwood as their main crop and tea as their secondary crop,” they added.

ASGAA executive members further reiterated, “There are instances of some farmers selling their Agarwood trees for more than Rs 50,000.  We at ASGAA believe at expansion and through which we intend to train farmers/growers in harvesting Agarwood and processing the Sanchi products and by-products. Assam’s rural economy will change in less than 10 years. Assam today deserves an Agarwood Board and Agarwood should be declared an industry and all barriers should be removed from the grower’s perspective. But ironically, the policy makers and planners are sleeping. Not only this, even our politicians and bureaucrats are not aware of this goldmine. And hence we would like to appeal to the government through today’s platform to formulate policies for harvesting the benefits of the Agar trade, revolution of which would ensure a stable and economically strong state.”