Context: Recently, Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India(TRIFED) launched several initiatives for sustainable livelihoods for the tribal population. 

• These initiatives were launched in hybrid mode i.e. physically as well as virtually.

Objectives and Need of the Initiatives

• The goal of TRIFED is to connect the entire tribal community of the country with the employment-oriented program.
• The livelihood of tribals is basically based on forest resources. Because they are nature worshipers and live according to nature.
• They have a good knowledge of the herbs found in the forest. 
• The medical value of these forests is well known. Apart from this, tribals have very good craftsmanship. 
• But the products of the tribals do not fetch a good price at the local level, even though they will be valued highly in national and  international markets. 
• Now with the help of new initiatives TRIFED, a good platform will be available to the tribals to sell their products, which will increase their income and improve their standard of living. 

Major Initiatives
Sankalp Se Siddhi – Mission Van Dhan 

• TRIFED  plans to expand its operations through convergence of various schemes of different Ministries and Departments and launch the various tribal development programs in Mission Mode under “Sankalp Se Siddhi – Mission Van Dhan”.
• Through this mission, establishment of 50,000 Van Dhan Vikas Kendras, 3000 Haat Bazaars, 600 Godowns, 200 Mini TRIFOOD Units, 100 Common Facility Centres, 100 TRIFOOD parks, 100 SFURTI clusters, 200 Tribes India retail stores, ecommerce platforms for TRIFOOD and Tribes India brands is being targeted. 
• Implementation of this crucial mission will definitely result in the transformation of the tribal ecosystem in our country.  

Tribes India Outlets

• Seven new Tribes India Outlets inaugurated at Jagdalpur, Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Sarnath Immunity boosting hampers, 
• It will showcase tribal products from all over the country and  the outlets will have specific geographical indication (GI) and Vandhan corners and will display the large variety of GI tagged and natural products from different parts of the country. 
• The Sarnath outlet is the first successful collaboration with the Ministry of Culture at an ASI heritage site. 
• With these outlets, the total number of Tribes India outlets have gone up to 141.   

New TRIFED Head Office

• The new TRIFED Office premises at NSIC Complex in  New Delhi is around 30,000 sq ft in area and has state-of-the-art infrastructure .
• It houses office space for the  Minister for Tribal Affairs, Managing Director, senior officials and all staff. 

Van Dhan Software Application

• It is designed to receive and process the Van Dhan proposals online.
• The software application has geographic information system (GIS) integration and can monitor Van Dhan Project implementation activities and can generate related reports. 
• A Digital Connect programme under which a two way communication process is proposed to be established .
• A Tribes India Coffee Table Book -It showcases the rich cultural tribal heritage and highlights the journey of various tribal artisans practicing different arts and crafts 
• It also showcases the impacts of TRIFED initiatives .

Workshops

• TRIFED has also been providing Skill upgradation & Design Development Workshops for the development of Tribal Artisans through Handicraft and Income Generation Training Programs.

Other Related initiatives

• TRIFED has been implementing several noteworthy programmes for the empowerment of the tribals. 
• Over the past two years, 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-ups have emerged as a source of employment generation for tribal gatherers and forest dwellers and the home-bound tribal artisans.  
• During the pandemic, efforts were made for skill development of the tribal artisans and 17 training Programs were approved for benefitting 340 tribal artisans and developing 170 new designed products. 

Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Yojana (PMVDY)

• It is an initiative of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and TRIFED and was launched on 14th April 2018.
• The scheme seeks to improve tribal incomes through value addition of tribal products.
• Under this, Van Dhan Vikas Kendra is established for providing skill upgradation and capacity building training and setting up of primary processing and value addition facility.
• One typical VDVK comprises 15 Self Help Groups, each consisting of 20 Tribal gatherers.
• The Van Dhan Kendras have been kept functional even during the pandemic and have  ensured livelihoods to the tribal people in the difficult times.

Tech for Tribal” programme

• It  was launched by TRIFED and IIT-Kanpur along with IIT-Roorkee, IIM Indore, Kalinga Institute of Social Science, Bhubaneshwar and SRIJAN, Jaipur in the first phase of organising tribal entrepreneurship and skill development program.
• It is supported by the Ministry of MSME.
• It aims to transform 5 crore Tribal Entrepreneurs and aims at capacity building and imparting entrepreneurship skills to tribal forest produce gatherers enrolled under the Pradhan Mantri VanDhan Yojana (PMVDY).
• The Programme will develop entrepreneurship skills among the tribals.