New Delhi (NVI): Government is making significant headways in its drive to create tribal entrepreneurs as part of its flagship Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Yojana (PMVDY) and has plans to soon come up with a related user-friendly IT-platform and mobile application for them.
Taking the drive forward, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs organised a two-day PMVDY national workshop here from October 30 to take stock of all the activities under the program and to plan the future steps. The participants from across 25 states are participating in the workshop along with the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India (TRIFED) team.
Addressing the participants on the occasion, Pravin Krishna, MD, TRIFED said, “Van Dhan Scheme is creating tribal entrepreneurs and it is not a MSP programme.”
Emphasising that Branding, Packaging and Marketing of tribal products are very important factors, Krishna said, “Loyal network of Retailers needs to be created by paying them a good commission.”
“Good business model needs to be adopted along with robust technological support and focus should be on value addition,” he added.
TRIFED is in the process of developing an IT-platform and mobile application for PMVDY. The different features of the same are being discussed and shared with all the stakeholders in the workshop for their feedback. The SRS document for IT platform and Mobile App have been uploaded on the Van Dhan Dashboard, an official statement said.
All the relevant documents, including guidelines, operational procedures, processes involved, proposal formats, business models, FAQs and pre and post sanction activities etc. relating to the Van Dhan programme have been uploaded on dashboard titled “State Monitoring of Van Dhan”, said the statement.
The above Dashboard has been created to monitor the activities as well as to highlight issues which need redressal. The State Nodal Departments and State Implementing agencies have already been requested to nominate a nodal person and a team from their end, who could coordinate and update the Van Dhan Dashboard on a regular basis, it added.
TRIFED has so far received and sanctioned 555 Van Dhan Vikas Kendra (VDVK) proposals from the 15 states.
–PS
