Union Minister Jual Oram Launches e-Tribes To Provide Tribal Artisans With Digital Avenues To Sell Their Products

Bringing global market at the fingertips of tribal artisans, Union Minister for Tribal Affairs, Jual Oram has launched ‘e-Tribes: Tribes India’. It includes the launch of  TRIFED’s websites including Tribesindia.com, Trifed.in and Retail Inventory Software and M-commerce app.

With this, the minister also launched ‘Tribes India’ Banners at ecommerce platform to bring tribal artisan made products to platforms like Snapdeal, Flipkart, Amazon, Paytm and government eMarketplace.

With the initiative, more than 55K tribal artisans who are connected to TRIFED (Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited) will get access to the local as well as the international markets under the Tribes India banner on ecommerce platforms.

Applauding the dedicated team of officers for promoting ecommerce for tribal artisans, which will provide a window to national and international markets, Union Minister Oram said,

“No stone should be left unturned in the empowerment process of the tribals through trade and all steps must be taken to ensure that they get full and timely payments.”

The organisation has also targeted to achieve the retails sales target of $15.32 Mn (INR 100 Cr) during 2018-19, with the help of ecommerce sales. Also, Pravir Krishna – Managing Director of TRIFED said, “TRIFED will make all efforts to expand the sale of tribal products through ecommerce.”

At the event, the retail inventory software prepared by TRIFED – wherein all sales and procurement would be digitised – was also launched.

Commenting on the ecommerce venture, Sudarshan Bhagat, Minister of State for Tribal Affairs, said, “The launch of ecommerce site will help to eliminate intermediaries and bring artisans directly in touch with buyers.”

Also, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed with the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) for improving the research and development component of TRIFED and tribal training in the organisation.

A special training module is also being prepared in consultation with the NSDA, Ministry of Skill Development, Government of India to streamlining the training and linking it to the provisions of gainful employment in the future for tribal trainees.

With a special focus on digitisation with programmes like Digital India, the government has continued its digital focus with its portal, GeM. After being launched in August 2016 as an e-marketplace for online purchase of goods and services by the central and state government ministries and departments, GeM is expected to touch $7.8 Bn (INR 50,000 Cr) worth transactions in 2018.

At present, GeM has 19,002 buyer organisations, 79,617 Sellers and Service Providers for 4,89,534 products. So far, over 17 states including Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Telangana, Puducherry and Arunachal Pradesh, have signed MoUs with the Centre for on-boarding on the government e-marketplace.

As the government recognises the power of ecommerce, the step to bring the global market for tribal artisans can be seen as a positive development to uplift the weaker sections of the society in India such as the tribal community. It will give a long way in helping such tribal communities to get a global platform to showcase their distinctive products to the world at large.

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