Government teams up with Amazon to expand 'Tribe India'

The Union government is looking to tie up with Amazon to expand tribal handicrafts through the online space. The government plans to expand the reach of the 'Tribe India' brand by scaling operations and house-to-house retail marketing, says Pravir Krishna, MD, Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India (TRIFED), a national-level organisation under the tribal affairs ministry.

The government is also working to provide insurance to forest producers on lines of horticulture and agricultural schemes, so that they can be insured against price variation and slump. He added the ministry will organise a national workshop on Minimum Support Price (MSP) for non-timber forest products, also known as minor forest produce (MFP), to address the gaps in the scheme and make it more efficient.

The MSP is a form of market intervention by the government through which the price is fixed to protect forest producers against excessive fall in price during bumper production years. The MSP scheme is currently implemented in just nine states, but it will be expanded to all 30 states. With a commission of 7.5 per cent the ministry has asked state governments to set procurement centres manned by self-help groups.

The motto is to recalibrate the programme by identifying the gaps and have a pan-India coverage to provide a fair and equitable deal to tribals in their trade, says Krishna.