New Delhi: The Centre has launched a Tribal empowerment programme to create 30,000 jobs for the community through bamboo cultivation and making bamboo-made products.
Union Minister for Tribal Affairs Arjun Munda inaugurated the special initiative christened “4 per 1000 initiative: The Indian Tribal Perspective through Bamboonomics” on the concluding day of the 14th session of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) on Friday.
The initiative has been launched under the Central government’s Entrepreneurship Development Programme (EDP) through bamboo cultivation project. German company GIZ is a partner in the project.
The tribals would be making handcrafted items mostly of bamboo at Van Dhan Centres. Products made from one bamboo can make tribals earn up to ₹3000 in the long run after training is imparted to them, a report said. Items such as bamboo plastic, composite bamboo furniture ( detachable), bamboo wood structure gazebo and non-timber forest products can be made and their usage will be encouraged through the initiative, it added.
“Keeping the tribal community in focus, a strategy has been chalked out at the UN conclave to provide them with the market access. Basics have been worked out today, we will launch it by the end of this month,” said Pravir Krishna, chairman of Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India, under the ministry. “ Within next three to four years, we are aiming to involve five lakh tribals and contribute to carbon credits as well,” he added.
At first, around 100 Van Dhan centres will be set up in Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and NorthEastern states. These centres will also help in addressing the problem of land degradation and desertification too with largescale bamboo cultivation. India is targeting to restore it’s goal of 26 million hectares of land by 2030.
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