Lessons from NID History: A Lecture at Ranikhet

I am posting on the blog after a long period of absence and introspection. I was invited by the Torrent Group in Ahmedabad to make a presentation on organisational sustainability based on my reading of major events and key highlights from the NID history of the past 50 years at a conclave for their senior managers at Ranikhet. The text below is the thumbnail outline for my lecture and it sums up my readings from the events that I have listed. The visual presentation titled "Lessons from NID History: Reflections on Institution Building for India" can be downloaded from this link below:

Download visual presentation as 12 mb pdf file Lessons from NID History: Reflections on Institution Building for India
Download text of the summary as 80 kb pdf file Timeline & Lessons from NID History: Key Highlights and Insights
Download Full Text of Lecture at Ranikhet as a 120 kb pdf file Full Text_Lessons from NID History



Timeline & Lessons from NID History: Key Highlights and Insights

M P Ranjan
Design Thinker and
Author of blog – www.DesignForIndia.com

Chairman of The Governing Councils at NID
1. Gautam Sarabhai - Oct 1961 to Feb 1974
2. Pupul Jayakar – March 1974 to June 1978
3. B G Verghese – July 1978 to June 1981
4. Shrenik K Lalbhai – July 1981 to June 1984
5. Prof. Yash Pal – July 1984 to June 1990
6. H Y Sharada Prasad – July 1991 to July 1994
7. Hasmukh Shah – August 1994 to June 2005
8. Ajai Dua (IAS) – January 2006 to February 2007
9. Salman Haider – March 2007 to January 2012
10. Anand Mahindra – January 2012 to date

The Inception: 1955 to 1961
* MOMA exhibit for SSI travels to India
* Pupul Jayakar meets Charles Eames
* Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru invites Charles and Ray Eames
* The India Report by the Eameses
* Ford Foundation and Rockfeller Foundation support
* Memorandum of Association
* Society Registration
* Establishment of NID



The Formative Years: 1961 to 1970
* Gautam Sarabhai and Gira Sarabhai as leaders
* Established at Sanskar Kendra
* Management structure: Governing Council and Internal Management/ Executive Board
* Early Faculty: Dashrath Patel / H Kumar Vyas / P B Bhagawat / R K Bannerjee / W M Date
* Establishment of Post Graduate Programmes: Graphic Design / Product Design / Textile Design / Furniture Design and Ceramic Design / Animation / Film Making / Photography / Typography
* Establishment of Library and Workshops with Ford Foundation funds
* Visiting Faculty: Eminent Designers with Ford Foundation funding
* Ford Foundation Project Funding and first round of Faculty Development and international training
* Publishing of NID Documentation 1964 to 1969
* Learning by Doing – as slogan for project based learning



The Crisis Years: 1970 to 1980
* Induction of first Executive Director: Vice Admiral Soman
* Falling out with Chairman Governing Council and trial by media.
* Launching of Undergraduate Programme – SLPEP
* Establishment of internal student consultative processes – Consultative Forum and Discipline Meetings
* Structure Culture Document
* Internal Management & Executive Board with Prof H Kumar Vyas as Acting Director
* Departure of Gautam and Gira Sarabhai
* Pupul Jayakar as second Chairman of Governing Council
* Wanchoo Committee Report
* Thappar Committee Report
* Induction of Ashoke Chatterjee as second Executive Director
* New Evaluation Systems for NID Faculty and Staff
* Labour unrest of workshop staff
* Floods of 1973 – Inundation of entire ground floor facilities
* Commencement of Institutional Building processes
* Design of Systems for internal management
* Rotating responsibilities for Faculty and departments
* Creation of Faculty Forum and internal processes of consultation
* IIMA Faculty as management consultants – Pulin Garg and others in Admissions and evaluation systems
* Ravi J Matthai as advisor to Executive Director and Governing Council
* UNIDO-ICSID conference on Design for Development – New Ideological perspectives for Design education to look at neglected sectors and new areas of application.



The Culture Building Years: 1980 to 1990
* Systems building in education and formulation of teaching curriculum and syllabus
* Testing of educational processes that were unique to India and elsewhere
* No examiniation system of evaluation jury and qualitative assessment of students
* Professional Projects taken to classrooms and students work on live projects in the field
* Research projects in textiles and industrial design
* Social Communication projects in Communication Design
* Environmental Design projects for Tourism and Conservation of heritage
* Village studies through Special Projects and Extension Training in Crafts
* Focus on Quality and Delivery of results as new models for development
* Faculty Forum and Open Forum as a platform for planning and collective action
* International acclaim for development focus – ICSID Phillips Award
* International acclaim for Design Education – Sir Misha Black Award
* UNDP Project Funding and second round of Faculty Development and international training
* Induction of Vinay Jha as 3rd Executive Director: 1985 to 1989
* Ashoke Chatterjee as Faculty Emeritus and Advisor
* Decentralising of Administrative processes
* Liberalisation of Faculty engagement and work ethic
* Project focus and Institution building strengthened by decentralisation
* Outreach Programmes set up with Cells in Bangalore, Madras, Delhi and Calcutta

The Consolidation Years: 1989 to 2000
* Induction of Vikas Satwalekar as 4th Executive Director
* Consolidation of Education programmes and documentation of outcomes
* Young Designers Publications launched and sustained
* Diploma Projects of students as a barometer of connect with the National economy
* Major Professional Projects continue
* Publications Programmes established
* Outreach Programmes consolidated
* Consulting activities strengthened
* Major consolidation in education processes and quality focus
* New Curricullum developed and introduced at UG and PG levels



The Rapid Expansion Years 2000 to 2008
* Dr D O Koshy inducted as 5th Executive Director
* Numerous new initiatives launched on a daily basis
* New Centres set up in Bangalore and Gandhinagar
* New Disciplines launched at Paldi, Gandhinagar and Bangalore campuses
* Design projects outsourced and rapidly scaled up
* Disconnect from education and projects
* Educational processes undermined
* Pre-Diploma presentation abandoned
* NID in the news on daily basis
* CII-NID Design Summit series launched and sustained from 2001
* Many International linkages re-established under the MOU format
* Student and Faculty Exchange programmes formalised and expanded
* Government Funding for new facilities and campuses enhanced
* Quality erosion in education a source of concern internally
* NID workshops dismantled to make way for digital facilities
* National Design Policy launched
* Massive Computer infrastructure established with government funding
* Speed, Efficiency and Administrative controls centralised
* Research Focus as a new slogan to bring culture change
* Faculty induction with slant for PhD holders
* Student dissent on Gandhinagar and Bangalore campusses
* D O Koshy’s term extended in 2005 but suddenly ended in 2008



The Golden Jubillee Years; 2008 to 2012
* Akhil Succenna appointed as Acting Director.
* Status quo in education and institutional processes
* Pradyumna Vyas inducted as 6th Executive Director
* Consolidation of Education quality and processes announced
* Review of curriculum launched by faculty and alumni teams in each discipline
* Publication of NID History as a major project for Golden Jubilee
* MSME Project launched with massive funding from Government
* Faculty consulting scheme launched after much debate
* Institutional projects take a back-seat
* India Design Council Launched and new programmes for design promotion announced.
* Railway Minister allots Rs 10 Crores for a Railway Design Centre at NID campus in March 2012 budget speech.



Insights & Lessons from NID History

A. Nature of Design
Complexity and Chaos
Systems Thinking
Wicked Problems
Value of Traditional Wisdom
Metaphor of Seed – Needs Nurture
Metaphor of Fire – Acts as a System
Metaphor of Iceberg – Only a part is visible

B. Nature of Education
Motivation and Ideology
Feeling & Sensitivity (Empathy)
Tolerance to Ambiguity

C. Nature of Organisations
Resilience to Crisis
Flexible to Change
Systems for Routine Tasks

D. Nature of People
Leadership can Rally people to perform
Systems & Values
“Power cannot be delegated, it can only be assumed” Ravi J Matthai.

E. Nature of Mission
Clarity of Goals
Structure of Opportunity
Mapping of Meaning

F. Nature of Knowledge
Deep Respect for Traditional Wisdom
Tolerence for Ambiguity

Prof M P Ranjan - Design for India

Bamboo Boards & Beyond: Multimedia CD ROM on design explorations for India

Interactive CD ROM authored in linked PDF modules with Quicktime movies and pictures of a product design and development initiative at the National Institute of Design in 2000-01. Download 550 MB zip file here.

“Bamboo Boards & Beyond” : Bamboo, the sustainable, eco-friendly industrial material of the future.

M P Ranjan

Image 00: CD ROM Graphics and first interface screen with six major sections that include Inroduction, Index of Papers, Presentations, Pictures and Sketches, a section about NID including the Eames Report and a interactive walk-through NID building in QiickTime VR.

In November 1998 through February 2001 the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Asian and Pacific Centre for Transfer of Technology (APCTT), New Delhi, had supported field research on laminated bamboo, a concept development workshop on the creation of new applications with laminated bamboo boards through a research and development initiative by India’s premier design Institute, the National Institute of Design. This workshop aimed to position bamboo as a sustainable eco-friendly industrial material of the future.

The workshop at the NID campus involved professional designers and architects working with students from NID and other design, technical and architectural schools. They created numerous design concepts using the new material, bamboo boards, currently being sourced from China and India. A product development lab at NID created refined prototypes that are on display.

Image 01: Interface screens from the interactive CD ROM showing the arriving screens at the index level that each lead to the specific resources listed therein. These include numerous papers on bamboo and design, 300 pictures from an album of selected pictures with captions from the workshop and its resources and outcomes.

This exploration and product development workshop was preceded by a number of field visits conducted by Prof M P Ranjan and his team in the field in India and China that started as part of a consulting project at NID for the UNDP in India. These visits produced a number of reports and the insights that were gleaned from these studies went on to inform the further developments in the National Bamboo Mission initiatives that followed with financial support from the UNDP to the Government of India.

This particular workshop and the product development lab were supported and endorsed by the following agencies:

Supported by:
UNDP United Nations Developemnt Programme
New Delhi, India

APCTT Asian and Pacific Centre for Transfer of Technology,
New Delhi, India

Endorsed by:
INBAR International Network for Bamboo and Rattan
Beijing, Peoples’ Republic of China

ICSID International Council of Societies of Industrial Design
Helsinki, Finland

Conducted by:
National Institute of Design,
Paldi, Ahmedabad 380 007 India

Image 02: Thumbnail images that are links to particular sections of images as listed in the Image Index.

This CD-ROM provides background information on the emerging status of bamboo through papers and pictures from ongoing research at NID. The complete CD ROM was reproduced and distributed in over 4000 copies as a free service from the Centre over the past six years and it is now available for free download here as a single zip file that is 580 MB in size that unzips into a folder which contains all the necessary files and hyper links to afford interactive viewing from the individual desktop for offline viewing. The files are in hyperlinked pdf and Quicktime format for easy viewing across platforms on Windows Mac or Linux computers using free software available on the web.

Image 03: Sample screens from the major presentation slide shows that are included in the CD ROM as pdf files that can be seen in an interactive manner. The little Red square goes to the next page while the little Green square takes one back to the main index above.

“Bamboo Boards & Beyond” was a large team based project with the following participants

Project head and Chief Consultant:
Prof. M P Ranjan, National Institute of Design, Ahmedanad, India

Project consultants:
Prof. Yrjo Weiherheimo
UIAH, Helsinki, Finland

Prof. Yanta H T Lam
Hongkong Polytechnic, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Long

Mr. Haruhiko Ito
President of AT Design, Nagoya, Japan

Prof. G Upadhayaya
National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India

Project Participants:
Faculty & students from leading design schools in India and Finland, architects and professional designers from all over India as well as experts from technical and development institutes dealing with forest products and engineering applications in wood and related materials.

Image 04: Sample pages from one multipage presentation offered in pdf format shown as thumbnail images.

This CD ROM was authored in PDF format so that they would be easily available for students and researchers interested in bamboo applications and design even if they are located in remote areas away from web access.

Image 05: The QuickTime VR presentation shown as popup windows in the upper row and other prresentations as thumbnails in the lower row.

The numerous QuickTime movies available on this CD ROM run within the pdf files to which they are connected in order to supplement the content that is being discussed in each file or visual presentation. The QuickTime VR provides a walkthrough of the NID campus as it was organized in 2000 and much has changed on campus since then but the walkthrough will be a nostalgic reminder of the old NID for our students and faculty who have known NID in the Ninties and earlier. The elaborate wood and metal workshops that were planned by international consultants when the NID was founded can be seen in this walkthrough.

Image 06: Thumbnail images of photo album that contains 300 selected images from the workshop and from the background research that led up to the workshop at NID.

The research and the workshops generated a lot of creative energy from all the participants and this digital picture gallery captures this energy to show the flow of design action when exploring and developing applications using a new material such as bamboo boards for exciting future applications.

Image 07: Graphics for the set of three CD ROMs that were released by the Centre for Bamboo Initiatives at NID in 2001, 2003 and 2004 respectively. The first CD ROM is available for download as a 550 MB zip file from this link below. The other CD ROMS will be made available at a future post on this blog in a week or two from now.

“Bamboo Boards & Beyond” : Bamboo, the sustainable, eco-friendly industrial material of the future.

M P Ranjan

Katlamara Chalo: Seedlings of Wealth in Action

“Katlamara Chalo”: A call for design and political action using the “Seedlings of Wealth” strategy for rural development in India.

Prof M P Ranjan

Image 01: A collage of images from the field workshop in May 2005 at Katlamara in Tripura State. A cultivated field of Kanakais bamboo at Katlamara, one of over two hundred such fields in the area. Nomita Debbarma with the DDPJoint and Nomita with Bani Urang at the drill machine set up during training sessions in summer of 2005. Samir and Ranjit the master trainers who worked with the design team in the field.

We first visited Katlamara in 1986 while on a project for the Government of Tripura and on that visit Gajanan Upadhayay and I found that systematic plantation could indeed provide high quality material for new applications of great value. We collected a few poles of “Kanakais” – Bambusa affinis – and brought these back to NID where they stayed dormant for several years but they also excited all of us and stimulated students to explore concepts with the use of this strong and straight rod shaped material. This provided grounds for our further strategies with bamboo and in my Bali paper of 1995 I had proposed for the first time my evolving conception of the farm to industry model for rural development using bamboo as a material driver which I later elaborated as part of the UNDP National vision report called "From the Land to The People: Bamboo as a Sustainable Human Development Resource for India". The six stage model for development proposed then was accepted by the UNDP in 1999 and the major initiative of bamboo promotion was started in India with UN funding being channeled through the Office of the DC(Handicrafts). You can read more about these interventions from my website at these links below:
1. Katlamara Chalo! Lesson in Rural Development
2. Bamboo Initiatives at NID
3. All bamboo joinery strategy

Image 02: Seedlings of Wealth model that was proposed in 1995 at the Bali Conference was implemented at Katlamara and the book about the field work and design strategies are now available between the folds of this cover, in a 64 page book titled “Katlamara Chalo: A Design for Development Strategy” (see link below or download 46.5 mb pdf file here).

In this book we have shared the process of how the farm to market strategy was developed through the various stages and how these concepts provided us with the background and conviction that the sustainable use of bamboo could bring economic sustenance to the local village farmers as well as to local bamboo craftsmen and entrepreneurs who depend on their craft as a source of their livelihood. The various prototypes that were developed as well as the strategies adopted by the design team are described along with numerous illustrations of the examples and the work in progress as a documentation report. Between 2001 January and June of 2004 we had the additional task of building a new Institute at Agartala called the “Bamboo & Cane Development Institute” (BCDI, Agartala) where we innovated a curriculum structure that helped train 160 craftsmen in the five batches that were conducted using our new curriculum, all involving NID faculty and research teams as trainers and catalysts in this education experiment. You can read more about the BCDI experiment at these links below:
1. BCDI, Agartala: A new Curriculum for Rural Transformation – Links to papers
2. Achievements of the BCDI, Agartala – Link

Image 03: Sample pages from the “Katlamara Chalo” book – illustrated pages that introduce the strategy as well as show the products and the story so far. Since this project in 2005 we have extended the range of products as well as conducted additional training for craftsmen from adjacent village clusters as part of the Tripura Bamboo Mission initiatives.

Design at the strategic level is not well understood in India or for that matter in many other parts of the world and in most cases almost all of the development success is attributed to the good use of science and technology and of management and planning skills while contributions from design are all but ignored. This is also reflected in the scale and frequency with which science and technology efforts and research are funded by our governments and in India the science and technology sector draws several thousand times more funding for development initiatives and the case for the use design is only considered if one of us, faculty from the design Institutes, happens to be present at some critical government or planning board meeting and we speak out in support of using design as a development resource.

The furniture development using the Katlamara bamboo for the rural development strategy is just one leg of a multi-pronged, multi-location and multi-year design and development effort that we have been pursuing at the NID Centre for Bamboo Initiatives over the years. We are pursuing this to show an even larger story that design at the strategic level (as we understand it at NID) can be a great and powerful force that can transform India if it is used in the 230 sectors in which it is needed but unfortunately which is not yet understood when compared to the manner in which with science and technology and management is understood in India. Many industrialists and government officials in control of development funding still think that design is a cosmetic addition to technology but this is far from the truth although the design media (in India and across the world) still seem to focus on fashion and aesthetics aspects of design and this I call "page 3 design" and I wish to promote the strategic design initiatives in India across all the sectors of our economy.

You can see Katlamara explorations as well as the range of furniture developed in 2005 at this link below:
1. Katlamara furniture workshop 2005 – Links and pictures
2. Download “Katlamara Chalo” book as a 64 page pdf file 46.5 mb

Image 04: A collection of products developed as a follow-up to the Katlamara Chalo Workshop. The Dismantling and stackable tables, benches and storage racks are based on the component stackable configuration developed by Sandesh R using the Katlamara Bamboo Joint using the DDP strategy.

This is an ongoing engagement and after the project in 2005 we have had the occasion to revisit the project location as well as collaborate with a number of partners in furthering our objectives of providing development interventions using design strategies of product diversfication and matching these to local capabilities as well as aspirations. In recent times we have a major project with the Tripura Bamboo Mission where we helped develop a new collection of products that could sustain local markets and these were introduced to local craftsmen in an effort to seed local entrepreneurship based on local demand. This “local to local” strategy saw the design team focus on one product category called the “Alna” a local favorite, a clothes rack, which is found in every home in the region, but is rarely made in bamboo. I have reported about this collection in a recent post which can be seen at this link here.
1. Tripura Bamboo Mission workshop at Bangalore – Link
2. Bamfest show 2006 – Sandesh R and M P Ranjan collection – Link and pictures
3. Bamboo Initiatives products catalogue – Links and pictures

Download related papers, reports and books from here:

1. Ecology & Design: Lessons from the Bamboo Culture, Oita, 1991 – (202 kb pdf file)
2. Green Design & Bamboo Handicrafts: A scenario for action in the Asian Region, Bali, 1995 – (pdf 217 kb)
3. From the Land to the People: Bamboo as a Sustainable Human Development Resource, New Delhi, 1999 – (pdf 1.5 mb)
4. Rethinking Bamboo in 2000 AD (text file), Haikou, Hinan, 2000 – (90 kb pdf file)
5. Rethinking Bamboo in 2000 AD (visual presentation), Haikou , Hainan, 2000 – (8.7 mb pdf file)
6. BCDI: Feasibility Report, New Delhi, 2001 – (371 kb pdf file)
7. Achievements of NID-BCDI, Ahmedabad, 2004 – (21 kb pdf file)
8. Bamboo Initiatives Catalogue: Design Strategies from NID-BCDI, Ahmedabad, 2004 – (16.6 mb pdf file)
9. Traditional Wisdom: Bamboo & Cane Crafts of Northeastern India, New Delhi, 2004 – (34.7 mb pdf file)
10. Katlamara Chalo: A Design for Development Strategy – Design as a driver for the Indian Rural Economy, Ahmedabad, 2007 – (46.3 mb pdf file)
11. NID Bamboo History: A Slide Presentation – 1969 to 2009 – (22.4 mb pdf file)
12. UNDP Lawn Exhibition, New Delhi – February 2001 – (540 kb pdf file)

Prof M P Ranjan

Centre for Bamboo Initiatives at NID (CFBI-NID): News in 2008

Centre for Bamboo Initiatives at NID (CFBI-NID)

A brief report for Academic Year 2007 to 2008

1. Bamboo & Cane Development Institute:

Governing Council meets at Agartala in June 2007 and March 2008. Prof. M P Ranjan attended the Governing Council meet of the BCDI at Agartala in June 2007. The Institute that was set on a new curriculum and infrastructure plan is now being managed by the Office of the DC (Handicrafts) Government of India. :more about the design intentions:

Download BCDI Reports listed below:
1. Achievement Report 2004: NID-BCDI – pdf file 21 kb
2: BCDI Feasibility Report December 2001 – pdf file 371 kb
3. BCDI Curriculum 2002 - 2004 – pdf file 3.9 mb
4. BCDI Curriculum Review 2004 – pdf file 3.0 mb

2 Bamboo Products Exhibition in Germany:

The Ifa-Gallerie in Stuttgart, Germany hosted an exhibition of selected Interior Designers from India as part of their “In Site –Indian” exhibition where five bamboo prototypes representing five collections of designs developed by the NID teams were on display for two months. The exhibit moved to the Ifa-Gallerie in Berlin before being returned to India in October 2007. :more about the Exhibit:

3 Tripura Bamboo Mission:

Prof M P Ranjan continued as advisor to the Tripura Bamboo Mission (TBM) through the year and visited Tripura in June and December to attend the meetings of the Tripura Bamboo Mission that is being managed by the State Government with the aim of reaching bamboo based development strategies to remote districts of Tripura. :more about TBM:

See the Katlamara Chalo website links here and download "Katlamara Chalo Documantation: Rural Development Strategy Report" as three part file below:
1. Katlamara Chalo: Background and Macro-Micro Design Strategy – 12.3 mb pdf file
2. Katlamara Chalo: Product and Technology Strategy – 15.6 mb pdf file
3. Katlamara Chalo: People and Application Strategy – 18.8 mb pdf file

4 IL&FS collaboration under the Tripura Bamboo Mission

In December 2007 CFBI-NID signed a “Statement of Intent” to assist the IL&FS and the Tripura Bamboo Mission by providing design supports and expertise in a collaborative mode. This SOU was signed in the presence of the Chief Minister of Tripura and follow-up meetings have taken place in New Delhi and Ahmedabad based on which NID Outreach Department has submitted a detailed proposal for a training cum entrepreneurship development project that is based on the CFBI-NID collection of designs as well as new student diploma projects that would be taken up in the current academic year. The project will commence in May 2008.:more about IL&FS projects:

5 CBTC, Guwahati MOU operation:

Due to lack of funds the MOU with the CBTC, Guwahati is lying dormant during the academic year 2007 – 2008. In the previous year CFBI-NID had participated in a National Exhibition at the Pragati Maidan as well as contributed to the Bamtech Conference and Festival organized by the CBTC in Agartala in December 2006 as part of this ongoing MOU. Discussions have been initiated with the National Bamboo Mission to obtain funds to set up a design centre in Guwahati in partnership with the CBTC and wit the support of the NEC, Shillong.:more about the CBTC, Guwahati:

6 Collaborative projects with IPIRTI, Bangalore:

Prof M P Ranjan had meetings with scientists and the Director of IPIRTI, Bangalore to explore collaborative projects in areas of mutual interest in the bamboo sector. The IPIRTI is located next to the NID Bangalore Centre and the Bangalore Centre faculty too has shown interest in exploring the application of bamboo mat boards and laminates in the Retail Sector as an eco-friendly substitute to wood and wood based materials. Further the area of low-cost housing is another area of focus where the collaboration could provide synergy between NID design expertise and IPIRTI technology expertise. IPIRTI has excellent facilities for prototype making which would be an asset that NID students and faculty can use as part of the collaboration that is proposed. Project proposals have been discussed and are in the process of being finalized.:more about NID IPRITI initiatives:

7 Training programmes and resources for crafts entrepreneurs:

A number of training programmes for various groups of crafts entrepreneurs has been organized by the Outreach programmes at NID under the ICIC activity centre using the design collections that have been developed by the CFBI-NID activities. These can be given an impetus to reach further through publications and web based sharing, which is being explored during the current academic year.:more about NID Bamboo Intiatives:

8 Bamboo based co-creation initiatives in South Gujarat:

The State Government of Gujarat has shown interest in using expertise in a number of development projects in South Gujarat. Prof M P Ranjan attended a number of meetings of the Gujarat Bamboo Mission as well as held discussions with the State Tribal Development Department and an NGO called Eklavya Foundation to leverage NID design and bamboo expertise for development initiatives in South Gujarat. Proposals are being developed with the Outreach activity to get student involvement in these proposed projects. State Government is interested in setting up new Institute for rural development in South Gujarat, which would be part of the ongoing discussions with the partner agencies to initiate sustained development.:more about bamboo and rural development:

Download UNDP Vision Report 1999 from link below:
From the Land to the People: Bamboo as a Sustainable Human Development Resource – pdf file 1.5 mb

9 Collaboration with other States and with other agencies and future projects:

The CFBI-NID continued to receive requests for information and expert supports for a variety of initiatives being carried out by other States as well as Institutions at various times. We have shared digital resources and publications to seed the continued research activity across various regions of India and this collaboration although it does not bring in immediate financial gains it has generated a lot of goodwill and opened up opportunities for future collaboration. In this effort we are in touch with the activities in Uttaranchal (Uttarakhand), Karnataka, Kerala and Orissa. Several schools of architecture have shown interest in sending their students for field training and research which will further the larger goal of bamboo based development in India.:more about bamboo initiatives at NID:

10 Publications: Books, CD and Web based resources for development of bamboo sector in India:

The CFBI-NID has plans to create and produce a number of print as well as digital resources that will help disseminate the vast design resources that have been generated by the various teams of faculty and students as part of the broader development agenda of the bamboo sector which is a very critical rural development as well as employment potential activity for rural and urban crafts communities. The research effort that started in 1978-79 that resulted in the publication of the comprehensive book titled "Bamboo & Cane Crafts of Northeast India" has been followed up with numerous reports and design catalogues that were made available as CD-ROMs and digital files online. Download the book in pdf 34.7 mb here. These proposed publications will help fast track the flow of critical knowledge resources for the development of the bamboo sector as well as act as an example of how the use of design can facilitate sustained development in other sectors by example. We will be exploring the sourcing of funds to support this activity in the current academic year.:download bamboo and design papers from this site...more to come: