Centre for Indian Bamboo Resource & Technology (Cibart)

Subsidies, handholding, spoon feeding - that's the route that development projects in India typically take.

The idea was to do something out of the ordinary - empower the rural communities in bamboo- and canerich areas in such a manner that within a year they would start thinking like businessmen and businesswomen.

To usher in a culture of market economics and let that dictate rural development. To set up community-based venture capital funds that would catalyze entrepreneurship.

Thus was born CIBART - the Centre for Indian Bamboo Resource and Technology - a not-for-profit, networked organization incorporated under Section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956. Set up as an independent body by the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) in December 2002, CIBART comprises enthusiastic professionals from diverse backgrounds.

CIBART has set up daughter organizations in several states across the country, with backward linkages into the villages and forward linkages into technical and other development agencies at the national and international levels.