Nexus of Good: Exceptional endeavour
Pravir Krishna received the Nexus of Good Award for his successful effort towards transforming tribal lives through an alternative marketing approach for their products
When Pravir Krishna walked in to receive the Nexus of Good Award last month at the annual function organised at Federation House (FICCI), he was applauded by one and all for the work he did before superannuation as the Managing Director of TRIFED. He had managed to transform the entire approach to marketing of tribal products.
Over eight per cent of India's population belongs to Scheduled Tribes (STs). The tribes have contributed to the composite culture of India in many ways. They have been the traditional conservators of forests. Forests in India have survived largely in the tribal habitats. The tribes have a traditional knowledge bank with regard to the various products of the forests — the fruits, roots, shoots, seeds, flowers, leaves, barks, gum, lac etc.
TRIFED was founded on August 6, 1987 as an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to leverage this great asset lying across the country. It was founded to drive tribal development through marketing support for tribal products, both handicrafts and NTFP. It has nearly 650 employees spread over 18 states.
Pravir Krishna, an IAS officer, was posted as MD of TRIFED, Ministry of Tribal Affairs in 2016. When he took charge of TRIFED, the organisation was inactive and underperforming. However, in five years, two of which were truncated by Covid, he brought a remarkable turnaround which has brought a tremendous boost to the tribal economy and ethos, impacting the lives of forest dwelling communities.
India's Prime Minister launched the Van Dhan Scheme at Bijapur, Chhattisgarh in April 2018. Post the notification of guidelines in February 2019 by the Ministry, and allocation of funds, TRIFED has set up 52,000 VD SHGs subsumed into over 3,000 clusters.
Pravir's efforts culminated into scaling up of VanDhan initiative to the Pradhan Mantri Jan Jatiya Vikas Mission — a convergent model where the schemes for livelihood development and promotion of enterprises of the Ministries of Tribal Affairs, Food Processing Industries and Small and Medium Enterprises have been expertly crafted together to optimise the results. Without proactive intervention and leadership, the schemes would not have been synchronised to yield optimal results.
Keeping in view the Prime Minister's vision of setting up 50,000 Van Dhan centres in the country, Krishna, based on his experience of working in tribal areas, designed and planned a much-needed paradigm shift by bringing tribal enterprise and tribal livelihoods into principal focus. This was consistent with the vision of development, alongside boosting other core sectors of education and health in the tribal ecosystem. The idea was to lift the tribes from the traditional status of wage-earners to make them enterprise-owners. This was a revolutionary idea, which required nurturing.
The new structure, called Van Dhan Vikas Yojana, encapsulates the setting up of self-help groups, each comprising 15-20 NTFP gatherers. The SHG members gather and do primary processing of the NTFP found in their area. Around 15 such SHG members are linked together into a cluster to reap the benefits of economies of scale and aggregated marketing. So far, 52,000 VD SHGs have been formed and clustered into nearly 3,000 VDVKCs, on-boarding nearly 10 lakh forest dwellers to engage in value addition, branding, packaging and marketing, thereby removing them from the clutches of middlemen. Over 500 products are being manufactured and marketed by these tribal enterprises. These include packaged tamarind, fruit juices, pickles, honey, hill-grass brooms, pressed leaf-cups and plates, processed and value-added cashew, chironji, fish-products, jams, jellies, candies etc. This proved to be a blessing for the tribes during the pandemic.
A new spirit of entrepreneurship is seen among the tribes, especially in Assam and other NE states. The VDVKCs have diversified into products like sanitiser, disinfectants, FMCG, women's hygiene products etc. The demand-based programme of Van Dhan is now under implementation in 27 states and UTs, including Ladakh, J&K, and all the NE States.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when most avenues of tribal livelihood were affected, Pravir revived and injected new life into the scheme for minimum support price and development of value chain. The scheme, lying dormant since its inception in 2014, was ramped up through vigorous interactions and webinars with state governments. They readily embraced it, providing a direct benefit transfer to tribal gatherers. As a result of the implementation of the scheme, the number of MFPs was increased from 10 items to 87 items and then to 97 items; coverage in states increased from one state to 26; 8,000 procurement centres were operated across the country by state agencies and procurement rose from a meagre Rs 30.8 crores in the earlier years to Rs 3,000 crores!
A special project to market tribal products of artisans of the North-East through retail and e-commerce portals has been put in place, and post-NFC will benefit almost 25,000 tribal artisans over the next two years. This project needs careful implementation.
A state-of-the-art tribal e-com portal is functional under the banner of Tribes India and caters to over 30,000 tribal artisans.
To market tribal handicrafts, the flagship showrooms, Tribes India, were increased significantly. This was to promote the organisation's visibility and revenue generation. The sales have registered over a 500 per cent increase! New avenues of e-commerce have been included.
To give a structured boost to tribal enterprise, Pravir conceptualised and designed the Trifood Minor Forest Produce Parks, converging with diligence similar schemes of the Ministry of Food Processing Industry, Ministry of Rural Development and Ministry of Tribal Affairs. This would be the first of many tribal industrial hubs based on Minor Forest Produces. Two major parks are nearing completion in Jagdalpur (Chhattisgarh) and Raigad (Maharashtra). 150 mini-parks are proposed in the near future. This will need meticulous planning and monitoring over the next two years to transform them into a Plug & Play PPP model, inviting large industrial houses to join the bandwagon.
Pravir signed off from the Government of India on 30 December 2021, publishing a book, 'Tryst with the Tribes: Tales from Tribal Heartlands', which gives a graphic description of his journey from the tribal perspective. He is now an Advisor to the Bodoland Territorial Council, Government of Assam and is happy continuing to do what he loves the most — to be with his tribal brothers and sisters. He is indeed a well-deserved winner of Nexus of Good Award, 2022.
Views expressed are personal
