Arjun Munda, Union Minister of Tribal Affairs launched several ambitious projects of Trifed in the presence of Ramsinh Rathwa, Chairman TRIFED, Yasumasa Kimura of UNICEF India, MD Pravir Krishna and many others in New Delhi on Thursday.
Initiatives included the launch of the TRIFED VanDhan Chronicle, 14 Honey Farmer Producer Organizations and an MoU with UNICEF to boost Tribal Samvaad Network.
Speaking on the occasion, Munda remarked, “I am delighted to launch all these noteworthy initiatives that TRIFED has been working towards. The Launch of the comprehensive MIS portal will also ensure ready availability of procurement data that can help in effective decision making and enhancing overall transparency.”
The Minister further remarked that collaboration with UNICEF will help in connecting, interacting and bringing prosperity among the tribals who have suffered from neglect over a long period of time.
The TRIFED Van Dhan Chronicle documents the activities undertaken by TRIFED which has impacted the life of almost 16 lakh tribals; including the introduction of Minimum Support Price (MSP) for select forest produces, training imparted, value addition that began in VDVKCs, new product lines developed, new ideas for packaging and marketing implemented, achievements so far and future plans.
The MIS Portal for Minimum Support Price for Minor Forest Produces, which was launched on Thursday, is a ready dashboard for the authorised users of The Ministry of Tribal Affairs and TRIFED. In this dashboard, data is available on a real-time basis, pertaining to the list of procurement centres and their locations across the country.
Given the success of ongoing partnership, UNICEF and TRIFED have come together to launch “Tribal Samvaad network” – Tribal network for Social and Behaviour Change. This network includes more than 90 million tribals, 52,976 Van Dhan SHGs, 3110 VDVK Clusters, market associations, haat bazaars, etc.
TRIFED and UNICEF will use multiple channels and communication strategies and tools for economic and social empowerment of tribal communities. An Understanding was signed between TRIFED and UNICEF today to seal this partnership.
It bears recall that TRIFED has been implementing several noteworthy programmes for the empowerment of the tribals. In a short span of two years, it has successfully now sanctioned 52976 Van Dhan SHGs subsumed into 3110 VDVKCs covering 9.27 lakh beneficiaries & 27 States/UTs.