Bhubaneswar, Dec 22: “Vanjeevan” the National Resource Centre is not just another feather on the cap, but a landmark decision towards realizing the vision of our Prime Minister for the entrepreneur development of the tribal. It will play a pivotal role for generating employment, eradicating poverty and positive exploitation of natural resources for economic development of scheduled tribes of India.
This prestigious project is a collaborative effort of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, National Scheduled Tribes Finance & Development Corporation (NSTFDC) and UNDP and envisioned as a programme to identify problems related to livelihood issues, in select districts of six states having low human development index of STs. The identified states are Assam, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha and Telangana. The second phase of the programme will be implemented in Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Meghalaya and Tripura. It would cater to the development and promotion of sustainable livelihood avenues in the tribal areas viz. Farm, non farm, and forest based and allied sectors through entrepreneurship and skill development. It also intends to forge linkages and build upon the skill building efforts of the other central Ministries such as Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Micro-Small and Medium Enterprises.
National Resource Centre will work on Tribal livelihood in all the sectors which contribute to the economic development in the tribal areas. Some of the broad areas will involve livelihood mapping and skill gap analysis study in tribal areas, knowledge hub on tribal livelihood and solution exchange of community practices on tribal livelihood leading to evidence based policy briefs and synthesis of e-discussions, training and capacity development and partnership development with creation of pool of resource persons and mentoring organisations.
It may be recalled that In the first meeting of Governing Council of National Skill Development Missi6n held in June 2016, under the Chairmanshipof the Prime Minister of India, the PM stressed on the “need for proper skill mapping and identification of the future requirements for skills”, so that school-children and parents are well aware of the emerging trends in the job market.” One of the major decisions taken in the meeting was that “traditional skills will be recognized, nurtured and promoted through informal apprenticeships, under various programmes.”
In this direction, two expert consultations were organized by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs – UND Pin December, 2015 and NSTFDC and World Bank in March, 2016. The setting up of a National Resource Centre for ST’s livelihood and Entrepreneurship is a way forward to address the factors inhibiting the growth of entrepreneurship.
