Aadi Mahotsav: Tribal culture gets big boost

Aadi Mahotsav, a fortnight-long national tribal festival promoting tribal culture, cuisines and commerce came to a fitting end on Thursday evening with Jual Oram, Union Minister for Tribal Affairs appreciating the efforts put in into this larger than life festival for and by the tribals at INA's Dilli Haat.

Throughout the 15-days i.e. November 16-30, Delhi residents relished the exquisite craftsmanship of tribal artisans. This included beautiful sarees, dress materials, jewellery, bamboo and cane products, paintings and hundreds of other items. Almost 800 artisans and artists from 27 states participated in the mahotsav, sold their products and displayed their skills through more than 200 stalls that were set up for them. 85 tribal Chefs from 25 states showcased tribal delicacies like Banjara Biriyani from Telangana, Khodiya Roti and chicken from Odisha. Delightful vegetarian and non-vegetarian preparations from North East, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Gujarat and other States were also presented. Keeping in view the great demand for these preparations, it has been decided to continue these stalls at Tribes India, Mahadev Road.

"I congratulate the Pravir Krishna, the Managing Director of TRIFED, as well as the entire team for putting so much effort to make this festival a great success. I feel happy to inform you that the turnover for this year's tribal festival has broken all the record with a total sale of 4.5 crore. It evidently speaks of the tremendous response given by the delhiites. 'Aadi Mahotsav' was previously organised quite a few times in Delhi as well as outside, but this year's success is overwhelming. We assure to provide all the support needed to popularize the tribal art and culture. We shall be working to add new centres from across the country so that tribals may get recognition as well financial upliftment. It's very important that the tribal artists get an appropriate price for the products they make out of their creativity. Through this festival, we have tried to achieve this particular objective," said the minister for tribal affairs.

The tribal artisans logged a sale of more than Rs.1.6 crores during the festival, which is a record for this event by a long distance. Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited (TRIFED) purchased goods worth Rs. 2.50 crores from the artisans for sale through its showrooms. Tribal artisans have promised to participate in all future mahotsavs with the same zeal as the total sale of their craft during the mahotsav amounted to Rs. 4.1 crores.

At the concluding ceremony, the minister for tribal affairs gave away prizes to the best performing groups and regions. In the textile category, Chandigarh Regional office bagged the first prize while Jaipur and Mumbai won the second and third prize respectively. In the cane and bamboo category, Jagdalpur, Chhattisgarh stole the first and second position and Gangtok, Sikkim took away the third prize.

Ahmedabad received the first prize in the gift and assortments while Bhubaneshwar and Bangalore got the second and third prize respectively. In the jewellery category, Hyderabad got the first prize, Chandigarh – second and third prize was taken away by Bhopal.

For the most scrumptious of tribal cuisines, Telangana got the first prize under the Aadi Vyanjan category, while Tamil Nadu and Odisha bagged the second and third prize respectively.

The mahotsav organised at Dilli Haat, INA; Dilli Haat, Janakpuri, Central Park – Rajiv Chowk, and Baba Kharak Singh Marg, New Delhi had attracted more than three lakh people who enjoyed shopping, dining and myriad tribal cultural programmes. The North Central Zone Cultural Centre (NCZCC) brought almost 450 tribal artists from 25 States of the country to present exquisite tribal dances, display of martial arts and folk music. Tribal artisans, for the first time in the history of Dilli Haat, engaged in digital transactions for which card readers were provided to all. The Minister commended TRIFED for introducing digital transactions and almost 30% of the transactions were through this route. All the tribal artisans were trained for using card readers by a special team from SBI.

TRIFED has also entered into e-commerce transactions and the organisation in future would sell the products through Amazon, Snapdeal, Flipkart and GEM (a Government of India portal of e-commerce), for which preparations are on.

Looking at the massive success of the mahotsav, the organisers (TRIFED and Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India) has decided to organise another 15 such mahotsavs in other state capital of the country in the coming months. TRIFED has invited tribal artisans to display and sell their craft and cuisine at all these places. The next mahotsav will begin in Jaipur from December 1 and Bhopal from December 16 followed by other States. This line-up will finally conclude by March, 2018.