TRIFED: Rathwa vows to get global focus on tribal products

Ramsinh Rathwa, the Chairman of TRIFED, a co-op body dedicated to transforming the lives of tribal people in India, is spirited today after the appointment of a regular MD in the co-op body. He says that now it would be easy for the Board to take the Prime Minister dream project of Van Dhan to the remotest parts of the country.

In an exclusive interview with Indian Cooperative, Rathwa says that the mandate of the co-op body could truly transform the lives of people if it is implemented with a purity of intention. We have begun in earnest, said Rathwa who joined as Trifed Chairman last year but have been at loggerheads with the former MD for a variety of reasons, impeding the work of Trifed.

There are 3100 clusters and each cluster has several members. There could be up to 300 persons in a cluster. The govt Van Dhan scheme gives Rs 15 lakh to each cluster so that they generate local business and give employment to members.

Himself an accomplished artist, Rathwa goes lyrical about the potential of tribal ways of life in capturing imagination of mainstream society. “Have you heard of Dollo oil? It sells at Rs 1500 per litre at Amazon and it is made from Mahua flowers by the tribesmen. It has unique medicinal properties and so are many other forest products which Trifed has taken upon itself to bring to the world’s attention, underlined Rathwa.

Rathwa talks of Mahua Laddu as well as about Tribal art and culture in great detail with uncommon passion. Just to add a little bit of polish and for the purpose of fine-tuning we engage NID so that tribal arts are noticed by international audiences, said the Chairman.

Trifed has as many as 143 outlets spread in 23 states which sell tribal products after procuring them from tribesmen at the government mandated MSP. In Delhi alone, we have 8 such selling points, he added.

Plus, we are coming up with Trifood Park in Maharashtra which, I am sure, would be a tourist attraction, said Rathwa, sounding impatient of reaching out to the world with unique tribal products.

Outlining Trifed activities, Rathwa said that promoting tribal art and culture, commercially exploiting forest products by sending rare plants (jari booti) to where they are needed in different factories of medicines and promoting Organic products are the main areas of Trifed operations.

‘Van Dhan Yojana’ seeks to shift the tribal economy from supply of raw materials to value-added processing of these materials. Scheduled Tribes constitute over eight per cent of our population. The forest-tribes are custodians (‘owners’, under the new law) of non-timber forest-products, whose annual market value is estimated to be a staggering two lakh crore rupees, said the Chairman.

Further he said that it was in this context that the idea of NTFP-centric tribal development for forest/tribal areas was conceived. It took a lot of persuasion and over 200 meetings with concerned agencies and officials at the highest levels. The initiative was aptly named ‘Van Dhan’, the wealth of the forests.

“The Prime Minister appreciated the idea and it soon came under his direct patronage as ‘Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Vikas Yojana’. Trifed was the natural choice as the nodal agency for implementation of this scheme”, says Rathwa.

A five-time MP from a constituency which falls under Vadodara, Rathwa himself is a MA in fine arts. Simple and suave, he rushed to meet Union Cooperation Minister Amit Shah when his own Ministry reappointed R Jaya as MD despite an adverse Board decision.

The entire board as well as the Chairman heaved a sigh of relief when Ms Gitanjali Gupta, was appointed Managing Director of TRIFED last week.