Bhubaneswar: Teams of NITI Aayog and TRIFED will be talking to District Collectors of Tribal Aspirational Districts of Odisha to follow up Van Dhan Yojana, which is helping out the tribal population in a big way.
While Odisha is having 10 Aspirational Districts, majority are tribal dominated backward districts, where Van Dhan Yojana is gaining quick grounds in tribal zones.
10 Aspirational districts are Balangir, Gajapati, Kalahandi, Kandhamal, Rayagada, Koraput, Nabarangpur, Malkangiri Nuapada and Dhenkanal.
With 660 Van Dhan Vikas Kendras(VDVKC), subsumed into 22 Van Dhan Vikas Kendra Clusters, more than 6300 tribals are being positively impacted in Odisha.
Over the past few months, training, procurement of machinery required for processing, branding and packaging has been going on in these clusters which are spread across the state in Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Rayagada, Sundergarh and Koraput. Production and processing of raw materials by the tribal people has commenced earlier this month.
Based on the discussions held recently between Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog and Pravir Krishna, Managing Director, TRIFED, it has been decided that a dedicated team from TRIFED along with the NITI Aayog team will work out the follow-up-plan for the implementation of the Van Dhan Yojana in each of the 39 Tribal Aspirational Districts.
These include districts in the states of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Telangana and Tripura.
To this accord, a VC will be planned with the District Collectors of all districts in the first week of June.
As a part of this association, a special focus will be on these aspirational districts where tribal population constitutes more than 50%.
Under the expansion plan of tribal development program, an additional 9900 VDVKs subsumed into 659 VDVK Clusters spread out in these tribal aspirational districts are envisaged.
At the moment, 5325 VDVKs subsumed into 355 VDVK Clusters have been established in these districts. This is expected to give a boost to the employment generation to nearly 2 lakhs tribal families.
Through this association, NITI Aayog will also support TRIFED in the concept of convergence for the Mission with Article 275(1), DMF, and STC component of different Ministries, and will help in professionally monitoring and promotion for effective implementation and feedback.
The Van Dhan tribal start-ups and the Mechanism for Marketing of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) Through Minimum Support Price (MSP) & Development of Value Chain for MFP’ Scheme that provides MSP to gatherers of forest produces and introduce value addition and marketing through tribal groups and clusters are among the many initiatives of TRIFED, Ministry of Tribal Affairs that have proved helpful by generating employment and income for the tribal population.
