Indian Tribal News Service
New Delhi
The Centre will soon come up with the ‘Pradhan Mantri Janjatiya Vikas Yojana’ —a new scheme to provide market linkage, without middlemen, to members of Scheduled Tribes to sell their handicrafts and other items and boost their income.
“The Pradhan Mantri Janjatiya Vikas Yojana will be announced by the Minister very soon. It has been sent to the Cabinet,” TRIFED managing director Pravir Krishna said at an event organised to unveil his book ‘Tryst with the Tribes—Tales From Tribal Heartlands’, on Friday. Krishna is a 1987-batch IAS officer.
Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda, who unveiled the book, said all laws and policies that were made in the name of tribals welfare and protection in the past could never become the laws and policies of the members of the scheduled tribes.
“Several laws and policies were brought after Independence for protection of forest, animals, bio-diversity but nowhere it was mentioned how to protect people who are living in the forest,” he said.
“Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Union government has streamlined the policies and programmes to also think about the protection and welfare of scheduled tribes and forest dwellers along with forest, animals and bio-diversity. All these things have been arranged in the policy,” Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda said.
About the book, he said it not only depicts the experience of an IAS officer who has dedicated his entire tenure to the service of the tribals but also captures the reforms that have been brought about for their empowerment.
Krishna said that the proposed scheme seeks to provide market linkage to the forest dwellers and members of the scheduled tribes communities and help them sell their products and boost income.
TRIFED MD Pravir Krishna said he will also prepare a proposal for setting up a Minor Forest Produce Board on the lines of the Coffee Board of India and send it to the Tribal Affairs Ministry for its consideration. He urged the Tribal affairs Minister to discuss his proposal with the Prime Minister as well.
Krishna pointed out that the quality of what the tribals produce is slightly higher than what is made elsewhere but they do not get their fair price because they cannot access the market directly.
“TRIFED is a family of about 20 lakh tribal artisans and each of the family has at least five members. Hence, it is a family of about one crore artisans. If we increase the income of these families by five times the Amul dream which was seen in Gujarat can be seen across the country,” he said.
