The three-day residential training programme on modern bamboo structure and housing organised by Cane and Bamboo Technology Centre (CBTC) in collaboration with Building Material and Technology Promotion Council (BMPTC), ended successfully at Kohra, Kaziranga recently. The seminar was held recently with the main objective to provide technical know-how on the use of the bamboo technology as a whole and particularly in the housing sector as well as in varied structural applications. Kamesh Salam, director, CBTC, Guwahati in his introductory speech explained the objective of organising such kind of training programme. This was followed by a keynote address delivered by Shailesh Agarwal, executive director, BMPTC, New Delhi. Agarwal highlighted the global importance of bamboo in terms of reducing green house gas emission from the earth along with the potential bamboo as the substitute of wood. He also revealed future plans of setting up of additional bamboo mat production centres and demonstration structures in different parts of the Northeast India for popularising the use of bamboo in housing and building construction. In his inaugural speech, member of North Eastern Council PP Srivastava stressed upon the employment generation potential and poverty eradication at the rural level through primary processing of bamboo. Earlier, Srivastava released a manual on