VanDhan Producer Companies

The Van Dhan Yojana, a programme that has been embarked upon by TRIFED,  benefits about one million forest dwelling tribal households. The programme envisages setting up of about 45,000 Self Help Groups (SHGs) in villages aggregating into 3,000 VanDhan Vikas Kendras (VDVKs) at block/district level (each of approx. 300 tribal members). These tribal families will gather or cultivate Non Timber Forest Produces (NTFP)and MFP, bring them to common premises/locations allocated to them by Panchayats, do the necessary sorting, grading and value addition to realise higher prices for their produce. The groups will also identify local/district level/state level buyers and market the produces through appropriate branding and attractive packaging.

TRIFED has so far sanctioned 1126 VDVKs in 22 States and 1 UT. To ensure scale, it is proposed that these VDVKs are further aggregated as NTFP based Tribal Producer Companies. All key activities pertaining to this programme is co-ordinated through the TRIFED headquarters at New Delhi along with its network of 15 Regional Offices spread across the country. 

The State Implementation Agencies (SIA) appointed by State Nodal Departments are driving the programme on the field. Each VPC is proposed to comprise of  3 to 30 VDVKs of a cluster/ region/ state and would be provided with initial seed capital support of upto Rs. 30 lakhs as seed equity support. The members of the VPC would contribute matching capital equity.

During the first year of its operation, 30 Van Dhan Producer Companies are proposed to be established, beginning 2020-21 and in subsequent years 50 number of VPCs are planned to be set up.