In a bid to increase the livelihood prospects of farmers, 23 people from different villages of Karbi Anglong have been trained in making bamboo coal and briquettes.

The Rain Forest Research Institute has imparted training to the farmers at Sotai in Jorhat district.

The three-day training, which concluded on Friday, was conducted under a livelihood project funded by the Mission for Himalayan Studies, Kosi in Almora.

Principal investigator of the project, Runumee Devi Borthakur said Karbi Anglong is full of different varieties of bamboos and a lot of waste in the form of shavings, branches, roots and even culms are just burnt and destroyed.

Training in making coal
Image credit – Northeast Now
Image credit – Northeast Now

“Through a simple technology, we taught them how to make coal and also briquettes,” she said.

Borthakur, who was also the resource person in the training programme, said bamboo coal has a readymade market throughout the country and that it is more efficient than coal.

The trainees were also taken to the Bamboo Resources Development Centre at Dimapur in Nagaland for hands on training.

RFRI senior scientist Ramesh Kumar inaugurated the training programme.

Smita Bhattacharyya is Northeast Now Correspondent in Jorhat. She can be reached at: [email protected]