Govt readies plan to promote millet in tribal areas

NEW DELHI: In this ‘International Year of Millets’, the central government is all set to focus on millet promotion in tribal areas and create livelihood opportunities for tribal communities through millet processing and value addition. To enable this, ‘Nutrihub’, a technology business incubator hosted by the Hyderabad based Indian Institute of Millet Research and Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation Limited (TRIFED) have signed a memorandum of understanding that lays out the broad contours on the way forward.
In a significant step to give shape to the onground outreach, Nutrihub, Indian Council of Agricutural Research-Indian Insitute of Millets Research (ICAR-IIMR) and TRIFED will be collaborating on branding of millets and mainstreaming tribals through livelihood opportunities. With the MOU in place officials will now start work on drawing up proposals to implement the broad vision.
Documentation of ethnic tribal recipes followed by several tribal groups including Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups will be another area of focus. Promotion of millet value chain activities in the Van Dhan Vikas Kendras in the tribal belt and scaling up for nutritional security of tribal population is also part of the plan, sources said.