Dabugaon: Tribals under this block in Nabarangpur district are resorting to distress sale of minor forest produce (MFP) as they are oblivious about the prices fixed by the state government, a report said Friday. The state government has permitted the panchayat samiti to fix the prices of MFPs and facilitate their sale. However, the order has remained only in pen and paper as the tribal villagers do not know anything about the prices of various MFPs.
In the absence of a proper mechanism, the traders are calling the shots in deciding the prices. In the haats, traders are fixing the prices of MFPs at their whim fleecing the tribals. Such a situation has cropped up due to sheer negligence of government officials in the panchayat. The tribals are dependent on the collection of 64 varieties of MFPs including Sal seeds and Mohua flowers to earn their livelihood. The plight of the collectors at Jhaliaguda village under this block is a case at this point. Tribal women Dhanli Bhatra, Lakshmi Bhatra, Ratna Bhatra, and Mula Bhatra of Jhaliaguda village wake up very early every morning and leave for the jungle to collect MFPs like Sal seeds. They spend the whole day in the jungle and it is already evening by the time they return home.
Each of them collects around 10- 15 kg Sal seeds on a daily basis but they do not know anything about the price of the Sal seeds fixed by the government. Later, they visit the haat and are forced to sell the seeds to traders asking for anything between Rs 12 to Rs 15 per kg when the price of Sal seeds as fixed by the state government and available with Tribal Development Co-operative Corporation of Odisha Ltd (TDCC) is Rs 20 per kg.
Notably, the state government established TDCC in 1967 to facilitate the marketing of tribal products with a view to ensuring proper remunerative prices to the primary producers and collectors. Accordingly, the loss the gullible collectors suffer is anything between Rs 5 to Rs 8 per kg of Sal seeds. Dabugaon panchayat’s extension officer AD Prasad said the prices of MFPs are fixed every year in the month of October.
However, he did not have the price list with him. This is indicative that how the tribals are openly exploited due to the negligence and apathetic attitude of government officials. Sources said the district has a vast forest cover spread over an area of 2,519 sq. km and almost 50 per cent of that area is covered by only Sal forest. A senior forest official requesting anonymity said that once upon a time the district used to sell 1 lakh quintal of Sal seeds every year. The state delegated the sale and management of MFPs to the panchayats 20 years back.
Since then, the panchayats are only engaged in sanctioning licenses to the traders instead of doing anything good for the collectors. They never see if the collectors get the right price for the MFPs during the sale.
However, the government has never taken stock of what the panchayats have done for the tribals during these past 20 years. When contacted, TDCC Director Akhil Bhatra said that TDCC is planning to buy the Sal seeds from tribals and efforts are on to strengthen the infrastructure of TDCC and construct a godown in the district.