Cinchona hub aims at rubber profits

Kalimpong, Aug. 19: The directorate of cinchona sold rubber worth Rs 27 lakh in the last financial year and has targeted sales worth Rs 35 lakh this fiscal.

The second rubber processing unit and smoking house was inaugurated at Rango today to increase the production of rubber.

“The sales volume has been steadily increasing every year. We have been making crude rubber from latex extracted from trees for the past four-five years. If we get support from the government, rubber can be the alternative cash crop in north Bengal,” said Gyan Chandra Subba, the director of the cinchona directorate.

“Unlike in south India where it takes about eight to nine years for the rubber trees to mature, it takes about 10 to 12 years for the trees to mature in the hills. We only start extracting latex once the girth of a tree reaches 20 inches,” said Basant Tamang, the assistant manager of Rongo cinchona plantation.

The cinchona directorate had introduced rubber plantation in 1993 and the first processing house was built at Rango in 2004. Currently, rubber plantation is spread over an area of little less than 200 acres — 132 acres in Rongo, 40acres in Munsong and 15 acres in Mungpoo. Officials said rubber plantation was introduced to add to the revenue of the cinchona directorate that has been incurring annual losses of over Rs 20 crore for over two decades now.

Subba, who was in Rongo for the inauguration of the processing house, said there is tremendous scope in the rubber business. “The demand for natural rubber has been increasing while the output is decreasing. With proper organisation we can sell rubber worth Rs 1 crore annually within the next five years,” he said.

The two units were inaugurated today by B.N. Pradhan, who was the manager of the cinchona plantation at Rongo when rubber plantation was introduced there.

The cinchona director said rubber plants can grow on land below 1500 feet. “It can also be taken up in tea plantations and villages. The quality of rubber produced in our area is good,” he added.

Experts said the only way of sustaining the 151-year-old cinchona plantation spread over 26,000 acres is diversification. The directorate has already started cultivating fruits and flowers on a commercial basis on the cinchona plantation to add to its revenue.

Around 40,000 people earn their livelihood from the cinchona plantation. 

-TT