The Planning Commission is pushing for fixing of a minimum support price (MSP) for forest products, including bamboo, as an effective anti-naxal strategy, hoping that increased income levels would address at least part of the disenchantment prevalent among the tribal communities.
As of now, the central government has fixed MSPs only for the main agricultural crops and there has been a long-pending demand to have similar minimum procurement price level for products coming from forests like mahua, gum, tamarind or sal seed, on which millions of forest-dwellers all across the country depend for their livelihood. Several expert committees have also recommended the fixing of MSPs for ?minor forest produce?.
While the finance ministry has to take a final decision in this regard, the Planning Commission recently approached the Ministry of Environment and Forests to prepare the ground work in the meanwhile. Along with the fixing of an MSP, what is essential is an elaborate programme for regeneration of forest product resources and their sustainable harvesting, the Commission has stressed.
The Commission requested the environment ministry to prepare management plans for minor forest produce and ensure technical support through the forest departments in imparting scientific practices for planning and extracting forest products, that will lead to ?significant increase in production with concomitant increase in incomes of tribals and other inhabitants of interior areas?.
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh said he was actively working on this plan. ?The environment ministry is already working towards this exercise. Sustainable cultivation and use of forest resources and fixing of MSP for forest produce will help in raising the income levels of the tribal communities and at the same time preserve our forests as well,? Ramesh said.
Jairam had recently written a letter to chief ministers of all states asking them to declare and treat bamboo as a minor forest produce, a step that has been hailed by the Planning Commission now.