Congress attempts to recapture tribal votes with 3-tier remuneration scheme

NEW DELHI: After the job guarantee scheme played a crucial role in UPA's reelection, the government is working on a plan to reach out to 100 million tribals to ensure remuneration for minor forest produce. The government will unveil an ambitious initiative by June, after the Cabinet clears the policy.

The plan is to have a mechanism to fix the minimum support price for a list of 10-15 non-timber forest produce, otherwise called minor forest produce (MFPs). They include tendu leaves, tamarind, mahua, sal seeds and medicinal plants.

As recommended by an expert committee headed by T Haque, it would be a three-tier mechanism: At the first level, tribals would collect MFP and transport it to a point not far away from their homes. A cooperative would acquire the produce at a minimum price there and push it to the market, after value addition.

The last tier would be at the central level, where a MSP is fixed. The central cell would draw up a list of common MFPs for all states and fix an MSP. It is likely to be reviewed every year.

The Centre would have an exigency corpus to make up for losses of states in case of a demand-supply mismatch. The gross budgetary support for the scheme is likely to be between Rs 4 to Rs 6 crore.

With the launch of this scheme, Congress, which leads UPA, hopes out to reach out to about 100 million tribals and forest dwellers who derive their livelihood from collection of MFPs. The majority of tribals voted for Congress in the past.

However, after RSS offshoots like Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram worked for their welfare, BJP has been able to make inroads into the tribal vote in several states like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. In Gujarat, tribals turned against Congress after Chief Minister Narendra Modi's Hindutva campaign.

Hence, the implementation of this programme is part of Congress' attempt to recapture the tribal vote. There is an increasing concern in Congress over BJP and other parties making forays into its votebank.

At Congress' Surajkund Samvad Baithak in November 2012, Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh had pointed out how the party was losing its foothold in tribal areas and on the urgent need to reclaim the traditional votebank.

An analysis by Chhattisgarh Congress also showed that the party has lost considerable ground in the tribal belt.

The issue of finding better prices for minor forest produce sold by tribals has been a matter of consideration among Congress ministers in the last few years. Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh mentioned this in his 2012 Independence Day speech.