Lockdown teaches poor tribals to sell their products on Amazon, Flipkart and other e-commerce platforms

Before March, if someone said poor, uneducated, illiterate people in the remotest part of India's tribal area would sell their products online using Amazon, and Flipkart, he would have been called daydreamer.

But lockdown has taught poor tribals, which no school would ever teach them--the e-Commerce platform, or how to sell their products online instantly. Thanks to TRIFED (the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India), who took special incentive, financed the poor tribals in distress and sold their stock online.

Their first target is to clear their stock to the tune of Rs 100 crore which is lying unused through private e-commerce companies and through GeM (Government e-Marketplace). The results were 'amazing to many'. If the senior officers of the TRIFED are to be believed, e-commerce platforms are giving a good response to tribal products.

Initially, the TRIFED had given financial assistance to the tribals who were facing a tough time due to no-selling of their products during the lockdown and subsequent market slump. It also put their products on e-commerce platforms and offered a substantial discount to promote the products and clear the piled up stocks. The results were amazing for the poor tribals, who otherwise had no option to sell their product in the present scenario.

The TRIFED has further prepared a long term strategy to effectively promote tribal products online. “At a time when all aspects of life have moved online, TRIFED has embarked on an all-encompassing digitisation drive to only promote tribal commerce and also map and link its village-based tribal producers and artisans to national and international markets by setting up state of art e- platforms benchmarked to international standards,” said a senior officer of the TRIFED.

It is also in the process of digitising all the information related to the forest dwellers associated with the ‘Van Dhan Yojana’, village haats and their warehouses. This digitization effort wherein all tribal clusters are identified and mapped using GIS technology would help bring benefits to these people under the “Atmanirbhar Abhiyanclarion”.

 The recently announced  ‘Mechanism for Marketing of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) through Minimum Support Price (MSP) has also helped the poor tribals during the lockdown. The Development of Value Chain for MFP’ Scheme has also emerged as a beacon of change and has impacted the tribal ecosystem as never before, the TRIFED said.

The new scheme was Conceptualised and implemented by TRIFED in association with State Government Agencies across 21 states of the country. It has injected more than Rs 3000 crores directly in the tribal economy since April 2020.

Meanwhile, the Centre had also increased the MSP of MFP by almost 90% and included 23 new items in the MFPs lists. The ongoing procurement of MFPs under the MSP for MFP Scheme in 16 States has hit a record-breaking high with the procurement touching Rs 1000 crores, and another Rs 2000 crores by trade over and above the MSP.

Among the States, Chhattisgarh has taken the lead by procuring 46654 Metric tonnes of Minor Forest Produces (MFP) worth a Rs 105.96 crores. Odisha and Telangana follow with a procurement of  14188 MTs of MFPs worth Rs 30.01 crores and 5323 MTs of MFPs worth Rs 2.35 crores respectively.

The Van Dhan Vikas Kendras scheme (a scheme to promote Tribal Start-ups) has also emerged as a source of employment generation for tribal gatherers and forest dwellers and the home-bound tribal artisan, the Ministry said.

1205 Tribal Enterprises spread across 18500 SHGs (Small Help Groups) have also been established to provide employment opportunities to 3.6 lakh tribal gatherers. The scheme ensures that the proceeds from the sales of these value-added products go to the tribals directly. The value-added products benefit largely from the packaging and marketing that these tribal enterprises provide. Manipur and Nagaland have emerged as examples of States where these start-ups have bloomed.

 

Besides, 77 Van Dhan Kendras have been established in the State of Manipur for value addition and processing of forest produces. TRIFED is now planning the convergence of the Van Dhan Yojana with the MSP for MFP Scheme in the next phase of its activities. Together, these two initiatives offer a comprehensive development package for tribals promoting employment and incomes and entrepreneurship.

Systems and processes are being put in place across the country so that the procurement of MFPs become a round-the-year operation and double the present reach to over Rs 6000 crore and and benefit 25 lakhs tribal gatherer families, the Ministry said.

To bolster the scale-up and prepare for additional activities, the establishment of 3000 VDVKs involving 9 lakh tribal beneficiaries in the FY 2020-21 is being targeted. 44 Van Dhan Vikas Kendras that will benefit approximately 14000 tribals were launched in Mizoram on July 14, 2020, by Shri. C. Lalrinsanga, Minister of Department of Cooperation, Government of Mizoram in the presence of Shri Pravir Krishna, Managing Director, TRIFED and Shri JP Agarwal, Department of Cooperation, Government of Mizoram and other officials. Activities in these VDVKs such as training of supervisors and surveyors have also commenced at full speed in the past week.

To bring more exposure to the empanelled tribal artisans and to bring their skill sets and products to international standards, TRIFED is also collaborating with renowned designers such as Ruma Devi and Rina Dhaka to train the tribal artisans.

In her own show, The Designer and The Muse, currently airing on News X, Rina Dhaka is promoting tribal handicrafts and products through a series of interviews. The first interview with Gauhar Khan was telecast on July 17, 2020 while the second one with Pooja Batra is on air on July 24, 2020.

With the successful implementation of these initiatives and many more upcoming ones, TRIFED is working towards the complete transformation of tribal lives and livelihoods across the country through by reinvigorating the flagging economic condition of the affected artisans and gatherers.

Ends.