Amazon to work with government to support handicrafts through Tribe India

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Sep 22, 2017

The Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited (TRIFED) is a national level organisation set up under the Tribal Affairs Ministry, and their produce arm, Tribal India, is making a distribution deal with Amazon.

Pravir Krishna, the Managing Director of TRIFED, said about current expansion plans: “The government plans to expand the reach of the 'Tribe India' brand through scaling of operations and house-to-house retail marketing.” Moreover, Krishna went on to say: “We have invited offers from retailers to become [a] franchise of 'Tribe India' from all over the country. We currently have 43 retail outlets in the country through which tribal products are being sold. We plan to set up 2,000 franchise outlets. The idea is to take the sale to around Rs 100 crore [approximately 15 million dollars]”

According to Krishna, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) will be signed next week between TRIFED and Amazon, and talks with another e-commerce giant, Snapdeal, have already been concluded. In this way, handmade products by tribal groups will soon be widely available online and so will have a much greater availability and reach. The fact that Tribe India is also government regulated means that the makers themselves should be rewarded fairly for their work and the government is also currently working towards providing insurance to forest producers.