Forest produce may get MSP cover

India's poorest, the tribals, can now expect minimum support price from the government for minor forest produce (MFP) — including produce. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Apr 17, 2011, 02:18:36 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India's poorest, the tribals, can now expect minimum support price from the government for minor forest produce (MFP) — including produce.

The Centre is expected to announce minimum support prices for 12 types of MFP for state governments to follow, and a mechanism to ensure that even non-profitable forest produce is procured. These are bamboo (declared MFP recently), tendu leaves, mahua flower and seed, sal leaf and seed, chironjee, wild honey, tamarind, myrobalan, gums and gum karanj.

The decision was taken at a meeting called by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently. "The consensus view has emerged," environment minister Jairam Ramesh said, in a letter to Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia this week.

Ramesh said it was decided the state governments would have to give higher MSP than the Centre. A committee headed by T Haque of the panchayati raj ministry will decide on the MSP for each MFP that could range between R500 and R2,000 per kg.

"Tribals in the North-East get five to ten paisa for a tendu leaf," said Nandan Saxena, who made a documentary on exploitation of tribals resulting from unfair price for MFP. Over 10 crore people are said to be dependent on MFP for livelihood, but they have to sell their collection at throwaway prices.

The government has also decided that monopoly of any agency in procuring MFP, including state agencies, will be removed. “A level-playing field for all will have to be provided to ensure tribals get maximum money for forest products they collect,” a plan panel official said.

The Centre will also tell states they will have to improve the marketing and distribution network. Another decision taken was that gram sabhas should be involved in management and regeneration of MFP.

"Forest regeneration plans should be prepared in consultation with the gram sabhas," Ramesh said, adding the issue has already been discussed with member secretary Planning Commission Sudha Pillai.

The government will also be preparing a plan to set up MFP processing units at the local levels with the help of gram sabhas.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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