Tribes India goes digital, launches e-commerce portal

Jual Oram, the Union Minister for Tribal Affairs, Government of India launched the website of www.tribesindia.com, the e-commerce portal of TRIFED at a glittering ceremony organised at TRIBES India retail outlet, New Delhi on Tuesday. The Union Minister for Tribal Affairs, Jasvantsinh Bhabhor, Minister of State for Tribal Affairs, Sudarshan Bhagat, Secretary (Tribal affairs) Leena Nair, and the Managing Director, Pravir Krishna were also present at the occasion.

Congratulating TRIFED for a sterling performance in retail sales during the current financial year 2017-18, Oram commended the dedicated team of officers for promoting e-commerce for tribal artisans, which will provide a window to national and international markets. TRIBES India has now started marketing tribal handicrafts on e-commerce portals namely, Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and GeM. The organisation has set up an ambitious retail sales target of Rs 100 crores to be achieved during the year 2018-19. The e-commerce component will help them in achieving that goal. The Minister stated that no stone should be left unturned in the empowerment of tribals through trade and all steps be taken to ensure that

they get full and timely payments.

The Minister also lauded for organising Aadi Mahotsavas in Delhi, Jaipur, Bhopal,

Ranchi, Chandigarh and Guwahati, where almost 20,000 tribal artisans had the opportunity to directly link up with big markets and achieve sales of almost Rs 5 crores. Each tribal artisan earned between Rs 2 and 15 lakhs.

The Aadi Mahotsav also gave ample opportunity to the tribals to interact with the Vice President of India and Chief Ministers of respective states who promised to provide all help to the artisans.

Minister Sudarshan Bhagat stated that tribal artisans residing in interior villages should be empanelled to improve and upgrade the supply lines and also provide opportunities to tribal artisans to improve their economic status.

The event during the evening also included the launching of the retail inventory software prepared by TRIFED, wherein all sales and procurement would be digitalised. Mobile commerce application of TRIBES India was also launched by the Union Minister for Tribal Affairs, which will help the buyers to access TRIBES India's products.