Consumption has failed to pick up in the domestic market and efforts should be on to increase usage of rubber and its products. Whereas, a recovery in the industrial growth especially in the automobile sector would increase the demand, other means of rubber usage should also be explored at the same time to boost domestic rubber consumption.

With production of rubber surpassing consumption, there has been a direct bearing on the prices front which are ruling much below the benchmark price of Rs 34.05 per kg as fixed by the government.

The demand-supply mismatch can be clearly understood with the help of the latest figures of the rubber board. It is estimated by rubber board that rubber production during the current financial year would stand at 6,27,000 tonnes. This when taken along with the openingstock of 1,88,000, as on April,1, 1999 puts the total availability of rubber during the current year at 8,15,000 tonnes.

As against this, the projected demand for 1999-2000 has been pegged at 6,23,000 tonnes. Even considering the rubber exports at 12000 tonnes, as estimated by the rubber board, their will still be an excess availability of rubber which would remain unutilised thereby affecting the prices of rubber. In the given scenario, efforts should be on to increase the domestic consumption of rubber and rubber products.

Speaking at the 106th annual general convention of the United Planters Association of India (Upasi), Rubber Research Institute of India director NM Mathew said that rubberisation of roads can help in increasing the consumption of natural rubber by around 28,000 tonnes.

It may be mentioned here that in order to encourage usage of rubber, the ministry of surface transport had in a circular released in April this year, have advised all states/union territories to use rubber andpolymer modified bitumen in road works. Mathew suggests that that the best way to implement the programme is to make rubberised bitumen in the refinery itself so that the process could be attempted in a much larger scale under strict technical supervision. Mathew informed that this has been earlier attempted in the country, however, this process is being used by small contractors and the process of mixing rubber with bitumen was carried out at the work site. This mixing at the work site makes it very diffcult to maintain consistent quality and also leads to a higher labour cost besides other problems.

Carrying out the mixing at the refineries would give additional technical advantages to this programme being propagated.