Necessity is the mother of invention. The tribals, who had not even heard of e-commerce platforms before lockdown are now selling their products online platforms including Amazon, Flipkart, Government e-Marketplace to meet the Lockdown slump presently operated by The Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India(TRIFED)a.

The tribals with the support of the Union Tribal Ministry have put their product on e-commerce platforms targeting to sell their stock to the tune of Rs 100 crores. If the senior officers of the TRIFED (the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India) are to be believed, e-sale it is getting ‘good response’ of tribal products.

The TRIFED gave financial assistance to the tribals who were facing a tough time due to no-selling of their products during the lockdown and subsequent market slump. It put their products on e-commerce platforms Amazon, Flipkart and GeM (Government e-Marketplace). It also offered a substantial discount to promote the products and clear the piled up stocks. The results were amazing for the tribals, who otherwise had no option to sell their product in the present scenario.

The TRIFED has further prepared a long term strategy to effectively promote tribal products on e-commerce platforms. “At a time when all aspects of life have moved online, TRIFED has embarked on an all encompassing digitisation drive to only promote tribal commerce and also map and link its village-based tribal producers and artisans to national and international markets by setting up state of art e- platforms benchmarked to international standards,” said a senior officer of the TRIFED.

It is also in the process of digitising all the information related to the forest dwellers associated with the ‘Van Dhan Yojana’, village haats and their warehouses.

This digitisation effort wherein all tribal clusters are identified and mapped using GIS technology would help bring benefits to these people under the “Atmanirbhar Abhiyanclarion”.

The recently announced ‘Mechanism for Marketing of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) through Minimum Support Price (MSP) has also helped the poor tribals during the lockdown.

The Development of Value Chain for MFP’ Scheme has also emerged as a beacon of change and has impacted the tribal ecosystem as never before, the TRIFED said. The new scheme was conceptualised and implemented by TRIFED in association with State Government Agencies across 21 states. It has injected more than Rs 3000 crores directly in the tribal economy since April 2020.