Keeping in line with the Prime Minister's call for Atmanirbhar Bharat aligned to the slogan of “Be Vocal for Local Buy Tribal”, towards realising the goal of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’, TRIFED has been implementing ‘Sankalp Se Siddhi – Mission Van Dhan’. As part of this initiative, Mission Van Dhan was launched by Minister for Tribal Affairs in June 2021. The mission targeted the establishment of 50,000 Van Dhan SHGs subsumed into 3,000 Van Dhan Vikas Kendra Clusters (VDVKCs). Through its extensive ecosystem of partners involving State Nodal Department, State implementing agencies, convergence partners, reputed training institutions, established over the past few years, to systematically and efficiently implement the scheme, TRIFED has been able to achieve the target.
In a short span of two years, it has successfully now sanctioned 52,976 VDSHGs subsumed into 3,110 VDVKCs covering 9.27 lakh beneficiaries and 27 States/UTs. These VDVKCs are at different stages of development and many success stories have emerged till date. The VDVKCs in Maharashtra, Manipur, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Odisha, Kerala, Tripura, Gujarat, Sikkim, Andhra Pradesh, to name a few along with all the 27 participating states have begun producing almost 600 varieties of products.
To commemorate this commendable milestone, a virtual event was organised on November 29, which saw the participation of members of SIA, SNA, tribal beneficiaries and other stakeholders in a notable number and was live streamed through TRIFEDs page Van Dhan Se Vikas.
Problems and progress of the scheme was discussed in detail in the session. The mission activities will be implemented all over India for Scheduled Tribes beneficiaries and is an ongoing intervention, covering all the 27 states and 308 tribal pre-dominant districts under the Van Dhan programme and MSP for MFP scheme. The initiative is expected to provide active employment and livelihoods to one million tribal families enabling them to engage in productive economic activities leveraging forest resources and activities they are already familiar with, without any dislocation or migration needs.
With the focus on ensuring round-the-year income generating opportunities for tribals and addressing the formidable problems that they face, such as possession of land/house with no rights; restrictions in the collection of minor forest produce; exploitation by middlemen; displacements, lack of development in forest villages, TRIFED, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, hopes to usher the next phase of tribal empowerment.