After bamboo cookies and bamboo bottles, Tripura has now launched ‘bamboo rice’, an exotic variety of rice derived from flower blossoms in bamboo trees. The special rice is claimed to have high protein, anti-joint pain and anti-diabetic benefits.
Launching the bamboo rice at state secretariat here, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said the bamboo flower-rice will be a “economically profitable product and people can become self-reliant with it”. He appealed entrepreneurs to take initiatives in marketing this exotic variety.
“We are trying to create different income generation avenues using bamboo since Tripura has an abundant variety of bamboo. We have made bamboo biscuits, bamboo bottles in the past. This rice is made by milling bamboo flowers. It is very helpful against diabetes cholesterol and fat”, Deb said.
Claiming that the bamboo rice is beneficial in boosting immunity and has high protein content, the Chief Minister has expressed hopes that it would go a long way in boosting the state’s entrepreneurship.
Odisha is famous for bamboo rice. While bamboo rice or mulayari grows only once in several years, in case a dying bamboo shoot flowers and leaves its seed in it. Muli bamboo, which is commonly grown in Tripura, is particularly favorable for this sweet, wheaty, nutritious bamboo rice.
Currently, Tripura grows 21 species of bamboo in 3,246 sq. Km area of forests and planned forestry. In 2019, the state government undertook an ambitious plan to bring 15,000 hectare area under bamboo cultivation by involving forest, rural development departments and local communities through incentivized methods. Nearly 80 percent of this bamboo is muli bamboo. As additional measures, the state government has already taken initiatives to boost bamboo plantations on riverside, roadside and fallow lands.
Earlier this year, Tripura’s bamboo bottles made quite a splash in the national market with Bollywood divas like Raveena Tandon lacing orders and actor Manoj Vajpayee taking initiatives to grow its production.
Bamboo cookies, launched in Tripura last month, has also made a good dent in the country’s consumer market as a tasty, yet healthy variety of crunchy delicacy.
