TRIFED is Celebrating 75 years of India’s Independence

Atmanirbhar Bharat is a mission that TRIFED continues to strive towards as part of its continued endeavour to support and sustain tribal income and livelihood, as India celebrates its 75 years of Independence. In a small contribution to recognise the craftsmanship of the tribal artisans and provide a fillip to their livelihoods, TRIFED has been procuring and marketing tribal art and craft items through its Tribes India retail network – both offline and online. The day India stepped into 75th year of its Independence, TRIFED launched 75 new tribal products and added them to the already extensive Tribes India catalogue. Sourced from all across the country, TRIFED markets exquisite and attractive items such as metal figurines, handmade jewellery, pottery, handcrafted apparel and organic produces.

TRIFED is working with its roots in ground realities and emphasising on welfare both in design and implementation. Strategy for New India at 75 captures the key message from the Prime Minister that the development must become a mass movement, in which every Indian including our tribal brothers and sisters recognise their role and also experience the tangible benefits accruing to them in the form of better ease of living. This implies embracing new technologies, fostering innovation and up skilling amongst the tribals. TRIFED is focusing on helping our tribals with the necessary modernisation and mainstreaming of regions such as the North East, hilly states and the 115 Aspirational Districts through various interventions. The direct outcome of this will be improved regional and inter-personal equity and elimination of dualism. For a similar reason TRIFED is facilitating investment as well as  innovation in tribal economy and has undertaken multiple activities.

‘Mission Van Dhan – Sankalp Se Siddhi’, The ‘Mechanism for Marketing of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) through Minimum Support Price (MSP) & Development of Value Chain for MFP’ has impacted the tribal ecosystem in a major way. The Van Dhan tribal start-up, a component of the same scheme, has emerged as a source of employment generation for tribal gatherers, forest dwellers and the home-bound tribal artisans. In less than two years, 44,157 Van Dhan Self-Help Groups (VDSHGs), subsumed into 2696 Van Dhan Vikas Kendra Clusters (VDVKCs) of 300 forest dwellers each, have been sanctioned by TRIFED out of which 1000 VDVK Clusters are operational. Besides, two TRIFOOD Projects at Jagdalpur and Raigarh (Maharashtra) are being shortly commissioned for undertaking value-addition of various forest products being procured by beneficiaries of Van Dhan Kendras. TRIFED now plans to expand its operations through convergence of various schemes of different Ministries and Departments and launch the tribal development programs in Mission Mode under “Sankalp Se Siddhi – Mission Van Dhan”.

TRIFOOD is a joint initiative of TRIFED (Ministry of Tribal Affairs) and Ministry of Food Processing Industry. It is a tertiary value addition centre for Minor Forest Produce (MFP) aimed at creating local employment and providing entrepreneurial opportunities for the tribal communities. The upcoming TRIFOOD park at Jagdalpur in the 75th year of Indias’ Independence will be the first of its kind multi-commodity processing unit to be established in the country. Being an initiative of MoTA. The project will help in the employment generation for 200 tribal families directly and another 5000 tribal families indirectly. TRIFED aims to establish 100 Trifood parks across the country as part of its contribution to ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’.

In continuation to it TRIFED has also identified 75 products of Tribal origin or source which will be registered for Geographical Indication (GI) Tag under the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, India. The Tribal products for GI Tagging have been identified from 20 Indian states and out of 75 identified Tribal products, 37 products belongs from North East, 7 products from Jharkhand and 6 products from Madhya Pradesh. Through this initiative TRIFED will ensure authenticity of the product, employment generation for tribal communities, brand recognition of tribal products and preservation of the Tribal Heritage

Moreover in alignment with the objective of INDIA@75, TRIFED is setting up an Atmanirbhar Bharat corner in 75 Indian Missions/ Embassies across the world. The corner will be an exclusive space to promote GI tagged tribal art and craft products besides natural and organic products. Among the missions and embassies contacted are Jamaica, Ireland, Turkey, Kenya, Mongolia, Israel, Finland, France, Canada and others. The first Atma Nirbhar Bharat corner has been successfully inaugurated at Indian Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand and TRIFED is also in the process of fulfilling supply orders placed by various Missions, thereby giving tribal products of Tribes India a reach in the International market.

To commemorate the monumental occasion of “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav”, TRIFED, in its earnest will, rededicates itself to the cause of tribal livelihoods and employment generation for creating a resurgent “Atma Nirbhar Bharat”. The call for “Be Vocal for Local, Buy Tribal” has been and will be the driving force behind this and will be aligned to the Government’s guiding principle of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas”