New Delhi: The Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited (TRIFED), a multi-State Cooperative Society under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, is promoting and marketing tribal products, tribal art and crafts within the country and abroad by providing marketing support to tribal products through its network of 31 retail outlets “TRIBES INDIA”, 37 consignment outlets of various State Emporia and 16 franchisee outlets. It also organizes exhibitions like National Tribal Craft Expo called “Aadi Mahotsav” etc. in which it promotes and markets tribal products. It also facilitates the participation of tribal artisans to enable them to interact directly with art lovers to assess the market needs. In the last three years, it has begun providing e-commerce platforms to the tribal artisans to sell their products. Towards this, TRIFED has entered into agreements with e-commerce platforms like Snapdeal and Amazon who will offer their customers various tribal products and produce through their portals www.snapdeal.com and www.amazon.com respectively to facilitate online sale. On the request of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Ministry of Commerce has also made provision for sale of tribal products through TRIFED on www.gem.gov.in.
Ministry of Tribal Affairs is implementing a Central Sector Scheme ‘Support to Tribal Research Institutes (TRIs), under which financial assistance is provided to TRIs to carry out various activities to preserve and promote tribal culture and heritage across the country through research and documentation, maintenance and preservation of art & artifacts, setting up of tribal museum, exchange visits for the tribals to other parts of the State, organizing tribal festivals etc. During the last three years, this Ministry has released an amount of Rs.4689.67 lakh to State Governments. In addition, Ministry of Tribal Affairs organizes annual festival showcasing Tribal culture and heritage. Participating in Republic Day functions also helps promote our rich tribal culture. Further, Ministry of Tribal Affairs has developed a web page for use as tribal repository (www.tribal.nic.in/repository) in which documents, folk songs, photos, videos etc. received from the State Government have been uploaded. State Governments continue to provide database of Tribes of India including their evolution, place of origin, lifestyle, eating habits, architecture, education level, traditional art, folk dances and other anthropological details for uploading on the webpage.
This Press Release is based on the information given by the Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Shri Jaswantsinh Sumanbhai Bhabhor in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on 04.01.2018 (Thursday).
