Nagaland’s hill broom grass set to make its presence felt nationally

NEW DELHI:

Nagaland

’s hill

broom grass

is all set to make its journey to mainstream markets through the Centre’s ambitious ‘

Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan

’ programme.

With Van Dhan Vikas Kendras being rolled out pan India, Nagaland has chosen to scale-up visibility of the sought after hill broom grass—one of the state’s key

forest produce

items. These brooms made from grass in the northeast are special as they are sturdier compared to the ones made in other states.

In order to enable forest produce gatherers to value add and market their non timber minor forest produce (MFP), the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India (TRIFED) is planning to grant approvals by end of September for creation of 600 Van Dhan Vikas Kendras (VDVK) across 307 districts in 27 states.

What makes Nagaland a case study is that it happens to be the first state to send in proposals for 20 VDVKs and TRIFED on Monday sanctioned Rs 3 crore for setting up the same. According to TRIFED this is the first state to get approval under the PM Van Dhan programme. Before this a VDVK pilot was launched in Bijapur, Chhattisgarh in April last year.

Besides hill broom grass Nagaland is also planning to explore building a market through VDVKs for cardamom and honey extracted from rock bees. Nagaland’s State Co-operative Marketing and Consumers' Federation Ltd. popularly known as MARCOFED has identified some 18 plus MFPs. It will steer creation of 13 VDVKs. A VDVK pilot was launched in Bijapur, Chhattisgarh in April last year.

Self-Help Group members of Nagaland make brooms using hill broom grass.

According to the Anungla Ingdong Phom who is a joint director with Nagaland’s department in-charge of development of under developed areas (DUDA) there are plans to create livelihoods for 2,100 households through 70 self help groups. DUDA will be steering the creation of seven VDVKs and through the SHG network there are plans to collect and sell 300 metric tonnes of hill broom grass through between November this year and May next year. These produce gatherers belong to the backward districts of Mon, Longleng and Tuensang.

“Meghalaya in the north-east has been the leader in selling hill broom grass. In Nagaland, the first government engagement to market hill grass brooms started two years back when we signed an MoU with TRIFED and since then we have been scaling up engagement. Between November last year to May we collected 65 metric tonnes of the grass through 13 SHGs drawn from the community,” she said.

According to TRIFED MD Pravir Krishna, like Nagaland, proposals have been coming from across states and approvals were underway to deliver on the projects at the earliest. The government is aiming to set-up 3,000 VDVKs in 2019-20.

Each of the community owned VDVK unit will be formed by bringing together 15-20 SHGs, with each SHG comprising of 15-20 members. Each VDVK will have around 300 members and will undertake procurement, primary value addition, marketing and selling of MFPs and value added MFPs.

Stay updated with the latest news on Times of India. Don't miss daily games like Crossword, Sudoku, and Mini Crossword.