Context:

• The Union Tribal Affairs Minister launched the Minimum Support Price for Minor Forest Produces and the Value Addition component of Van Dhan scheme on at a workshop organised by TRIFED.
• The day-long workshop saw participation from representatives from 30 state governments and stakeholdingorganisations. Primarily, the rollout and implementation plan of the scheme was discussed with the delegates.

The Van Dhan Scheme:

• The Van Dhan Scheme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Bijapur District of Chhattisgarh in April 2018.
• The Ministry of Tribal Affairs is now scaling up the Van Dhan Scheme and is ready to extend it to all tribal districts of the country in phases starting with the aspirational districts with substantial tribal population.
• The Ministry has also decided to expand the coverage of the Minimum Support Price for Minor Forest Produce scheme to 50 minor forest produce.
• The MSP has also been raised between 30 per cent and 40 per cent in case of each of the commodities.
• The procurement of the Minor Forest Produce will commence in Haat Bazaars, where tribals bring their produce through the facilitation of the state government agencies and district collectors of the concerned districts.
• A major advocacy drive will be launched for the same.  It is proposed to set up around 6000 Van Dan Vikas Kendras in the country comprising 300 tribal gatherers each, thus, providing employment to almost 45 lakh tribals.
• The Ministry of Food Processing Industries along with the Ministry of Tribal Affairs has decided to set up two minor forest produce processing units at Jagdalpur in Chhattisgarh and Raigarh in Maharashtra at the cost of almost approximately Rs 11 Crores.
• These units will source minor forest produces from tribal gatherers and MSP and process them for marketing through tribal entities all over the country.
• Besides this, the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India (TRIFED) has also launched the “Friends of Tribes” Scheme for sourcing of CSR funds from Public Sector Organisations.
• The organisations have been requested to fund tribal entrepreneurship development programme through their csr initiatives.