Central Government through the Ministry of Tribal Affairs ( MOTA) has started a new ambitious scheme for the marketing of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) through the minimum support price (MSP) route to provide a social safety net to forest dwellers.

In Jharkhand state JHAMFCOFED has been nominated as the State Procurement Agency to carry out this scheme.

The scheme will ensure that the tribal population gets a remunerative price for the produce they collect from the forest. It would also provide alternative employment avenues to them.

An estimated 100 million forest dwellers depend on the minor forest produce (MFP) like tendu, bamboo, tamarind ,Mahua, Karanjetcfor food, shelter, medicines and income.

"The scheme seeks to establish a system to ensure fair monetary returns for forest dweller's efforts in collection, primary processing, storage, packaging and transportation while ensuring sustainability of the resource base," The centrally-sponsored scheme also seeks to get them a share of revenue from the sale proceeds with costs deducted.

The central governments contribution is 75% of the required fund and the rest 25% will be provided by the Welfare Department of Jharkhand Government as assistance.

The scheme would cover 12 MFPs namely 1. Saal seed; 2. Tamarind; 3. Mahua seed; 4. Chironjee; 5. Karaya Gum; 6. Wild Honey; 7.karanj seed; 8.Saal Leaf; 9.bamboo; 10.Tendu leave; 11. Myrobalan and12 Lac. The responsibility of purchasing all of the items except Tendu leave, Bamboo and Lac is of JHAMFCOFED, Ranchi.
The scheme supports primary value addition as well as provides for supply chain infrastructure like cold storages and warehouses, rural haat/ bazar up gradation etc.

Mostly the MFP’s are collected and sold in the old traditional way and not changed as per the need of the time. Training programmes in all aspects of the MFP is being prepared so that the poor MFP collector can collect more MFP and better price through value addition.

In the first phase Training for thee deseeding, brick making and packaging of Tamarind is planned. 10 members from different Primary Cooperative Societies of the state has been selected to undergo training in Jagdalpur (Chattisgarh). The training is planned for the whole 2014 and the target is to train 300 persons in the current financial year.

Multi PurposeTribal Development Centre (MPTDC) is a new concept incorporated in the MSP for MFP Scheme. The basic objective of these MPTDC is to establish enabling infrastructure to impart training to tribal, create value addition opportunities for MFP’s and facilitate MFP procurement etc. MPTDC will help in establishing sustainable institutional mechanism for comprehensive all round development of tribal communities.

IIFM Bhopal and Ram Krishna Mission, Ranchi will prepare feasibility roadmap for the MPTDC. Suitable land near Ranchi has been identified for its establishment.