The Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited (TRIFED), under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India, in coordination with the Alluri Sitharama Raju district administration and ITDA Paderu, organised a workshop on ‘Livelihood and Enterprise Development of Tribal Communities through Minor Forest Produce (MFP) / Van Dhan Vikas Kendras (VDVKs)’, at Paderu on Tuesday.
Managing director, TRIFED, Bhaskar Jha, project officer, ITDA Paderu. Aditya Varma, District Collector T. Nishanthi, inaugurated the programme.
Around 200 MFP gatherers, VDVK beneficiaries, SHG members, tribal artisans, officials and other stakeholders participated. The workshop, supported by TRIFED–NIFTEM collaboration, focused on processing, value addition, quality improvement, packaging, branding and marketing of tribal products through TRIBES India.
Participants were also oriented towards digital marketing, e-commerce and AI-enabled opportunities for reaching wider markets.
Mr Rajamurugan stated that the key objective of TRIFED is to transform the natural resources, traditional knowledge and skills of tribal communities into sustainable livelihood and enterprise opportunities.
He emphasised that MFP should not be sold merely as raw material. Processing, value addition, quality improvement, packaging, branding and stronger market linkages are essential to enable tribal producers to secure better returns.
He informed that the coverage of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) Scheme for Minor Forest Produce has expanded from 10 commodities in 2013–14 to 87 commodities at present. He also highlighted the role of PMJVM and PM-JANMAN in strengthening VDVKs as platforms for tribal economic empowerment.
Collector T. Nishanthi, stressed the need to develop Paderu honey in collaboration with NIFTEM, undertake processing and product development, explore marketing through TRIBES India, and pursue possibilities for Geographical Indication (GI) recognition.
ITDA Project Officer Aditya Varma, said that a new digital application is being developed under ITDA to connect tribal products with markets and provide producers with better market opportunities and improved returns.
98 VDVKs Fully Operational in ITDA Paderu
In Andhra Pradesh, 415 PMJVM VDVKs have been sanctioned, of which 398 are operational. In ITDA Paderu, all 98 sanctioned VDVKs are operational, with cumulative sales of approximately ₹1.46 crore, he said
Published – October 06, 2026 07:43 pm IST
