TRIFED (Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India), Ministry of Tribal Affairs is set to partner with NITI Aayog for implementation of Van Dhan Vikas Kendra (VDVK) initiative under Van Dhan Yojna in 39 Tribal Aspirational districts identified by NITI Aayog.
- Van Dhan tribal start-ups or VDVK is a programme for value addition, branding & marketing of Minor Forest Produces by establishing Van Dhan Kendras to facilitate the creation of sustainable livelihoods for the forest-based tribes.
Key Points
i.A dedicated team consisting of members from TRIFED and NITI aayog will be for implementation of Van Dhan Yojana in each of the 39 Tribal Aspirational Districts which are situated in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Telangana and Tripura.
- Special focus will be on these aspirational districts, where the tribal population is more than 50%.
ii.Under the expansion plan of tribal development program,
- An additional 9900 VDVKs (subsumed into 659 VDVK Clusters) have been proposed to be established in the 39 tribal aspirational districts.
- The move will boost the employment generation to nearly 2 lakhs tribal families.
iii. Through this partnership, NITI Aayog will support TRIFED in the concept of convergence (a collaboration between State & Central Governments, Development partners) for the VDVK Mission with Article 275 (1), DMF (District Mineral Foundations), and Scheduled Tribe Component (STC) of different ministries.
- NITI Aayog will also help in monitoring and promotion of effective implementation and feedback.
- Article 275 (1) of the Constitution – 100% annual grant from Government of India to States for the purpose of promoting the welfare of the Scheduled Tribes in that state or raising the level of administration of the Scheduled Areas.
Van Dhan Yojna or Van Dhan Scheme
i.It was launched on 14th April 2018 and is implemented by TRIFED.Van Dhan start ups helps for the socio-economic development of the tribal population of the country to set up the Van Dhan Kendra.
ii.It is a component of the ‘Mechanism for Marketing of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) through Minimum Support Price (MSP) & Development of Value Chain for MFP’.
iii. The idea is to set up tribal community-owned Van Dhan Vikas Kendra Clusters (VDVKCs) in predominantly forested tribal districts.
- Till date, around 37, 259 VDVKs subsumed into 2224 VDVKCs of 300 forest dwellers each have been sanctioned by TRIFED. 15 VDVK form 1 VDVK Cluster (VDVKC).
- 50 Lakh tribals have been impacted by the Van Dhan start-ups program till now.
Recent Related News:
April 30, 2021, TRIFED signed an MoU with The Link Fund, an Philanthropic operational foundation for empowerment of tribals.
About TRIFED
It comes under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs
Managing Director – Pravir Krishna
Head Office – New Delhi
About NITI Aayog
CEO – Amitabh Kant
Headquarters – New Delhi
