Looking for a new desk or dining table? Instead of visiting branded stores or making choices online, you may now consider buying furniture from West Bengal’s Forest Department, which is now going to use resources at its disposal to enhance its earnings by opening carpentry units across the State.
As of now, three new furniture workshops are coming up — in Siliguri in north Bengal, in Asansol in south Bengal, and in Rajarhat in Kolkata — of which the last is already said to have resumed operations. If the demand increases, at least three more such workshops will be opened in other parts, according to an official of the department.
The Forest Department, which has a massive stock of timber — teak, sal, mahogany, and jarul included — and which already runs a few joinery and carpentry units across West Bengal, has been supplying furniture to State Government departments, corporations, and some of the State Government institutions, but now anyone can buy from them.
“We have been doing this since 1989, but now we have decided to give fresh impetus to furniture-making. The response has been good,” a Forest Department official told The Hindu. The department is writing to heads of various State Government departments and institutions, urging them to buy its furniture of “modern and fashionable design.”
This fresh impetus to its furniture business will help the Forest Department kill many birds with one stone: enhance its income by increasing its customers base, allow government institutions to buy quality furniture at a reasonable price, and put the large stock of timber (including the quantities seized from smugglers) to beneficial use.
“Are you looking for modern and fashionable wooden furniture for your home and office? West Bengal Forest Development Corporation welcomes you. Our specialities: genuine and original timber; customised-making option; modern and fashionable design; dedicated joinery and carpentry workshops,” says the email from the department, both in English and in Bangla, that is now being widely circulated across departments and institutions.
The Forest Department additionally sells timber and firewood and in recent years has also been selling non-timber forest produces such as citronella, turmeric and honey.
