Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), an apex industry body have embarked upon a new three-year initiative jointly for Tribal Entrepreneurship Development’. The program was kick-started today by the Union Minister of Tribal Affairs Shri Arjun Munda through Video conference. ASSOCHAM has been designated as one of several Centres of Excellence which are partnering with Ministry of Tribal Affairs to carry out special projects related to socio-economic development of Tribals.

Shri Arjun Munda during his key note address called upon all the stakeholders, including the industry members, to join in the efforts of developing the potential of the tribal communities and building their capacities to enhance their contribution in socio-economic growth thus fulfilling the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat given by the Prime Minister. He said that a country can only become self – reliant when its people will be made self- reliant. Citing various initiatives of his Ministry, he emphasised how these programs would understand and enhance the untapped potential and skills of rural and tribal communities, and provide possible solutions for their livelihood. With this new initiative of ASSOCHAM, he hoped to position and develop tribal offerings in national and International market and in turn create better livelihood opportunities for tribal artisans.

Shri Deepak Khandekar, Secretary, Minister of Tribal Affairs while sharing his views on tribal entrepreneurship said that the tribal communities have a great knowledge and skills and the entrepreneurship development initiatives would make them realise about their inherent strength so that they can available vast opportunities available with them so that they can use their skills and establish commercial ventures.

Dr. Niranjan Hiranandani President, ASSOCHAM, said that more than 4.5 lakh SMEs are directly or indirectly currently associated with our organization. Through this Centre of Excellence, value addition, technology advance and marketing of tribal products would be facilitated to the tribal communities in a more effective and efficient manner. The ‘Tribal Entrepreneurship Development Programme’ would optimize the contribution of tribal population to the growing economy of our country and support India's vision of becoming Atmanirbhar. He urged all members to come forward and collaborate with the Ministry to adopt a village near their factories in collaboration with Ministry.

DG, IIPA Sh. SN Tripathi stressed how the Atam Nirbhar Bharat initiative is connected to the teachings of father of Nation who always emphasised the role of tribals and rural India in Nation building.

Mr. Deepak Sood, Secretary General, ASSOCHAM, said, “In a bid to promote and support entrepreneurship across Indian tribal communities, efforts are underway in connecting agriculture and forest produce with markets using technology, creation of self-help groups, empowering women, and creating self-sustainable enterprises. The ‘ASSOCHAM will strive to explore avenues of promotion to create a robust tribal brand identity and in the process - build and enhance the entrepreneurial capabilities of the tribal artisans.”

Dr Navaljit Kapoor, Joint Secretary, MoTA delivered a presentation and briefed about several projects undertaken by the Ministry in collaboration with States, Trifed, and reputed Government and Non-Government Organizations spread over country and also discussed various models of entrepreneurship development undertaken with these partner organizations, designated as Centre of Excellences.

Ms. Meenakshi Sharma ASG, ASSOCHAM briefed about the project, where in 1000 tribal artisans would be identified under this initiative and would be helped to create a unique brand identity with a differentiated value proposition and connect with the potential customer base through exhibitions, Virtual road shows and explore participation of the entrepreneur’s in major events across the country and internationally.

To mark the ‘Launch of Tribal Entrepreneurship Development Programme’, ASSOCHAM also conducted a webinar titled, ‘Khadi: Symbol of independent Atmanirbhar Bharat’ to commemorate the birth of Mahatma Gandhi and to celebrate upliftment, inclusion and empowerment of our underprivileged, marginalized and impoverished communities.

The discussion focused on the urgency to promote and support entrepreneurship of the tribal communities in the country. Shri Vineet Agarwal, Sr. Vice President, ASSOCHAM, Dr. Atul Kochhar, CEO, National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH), Dr. Manish Pande, Director & Head, Project Analysis & Documentation (PAD) Division, Quality Council of India, Dr. Manu Gupta, Co- Founder Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society (SEEDS) along with other senior industry players shared their views on the tribal development .

The operational integration of Ayush Grid, the emerging IT backbone for AYUSH Sector with the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM), was endorsed at a high level meeting chaired by Vd. Rajesh Kotech Secretary, Ministry of AYUSH recently.

The Ayush Grid team and the NDHM have already held several rounds of discussions in the matter and reached understanding on the modalities involved. This integration will be immensely beneficial to the public for availing varied options for their health needs. The integration will also accelerate the mainstreaming of Ayush disciplines of healthcare.

Secretary (AYUSH) also reviewed the current status of IT initiatives undertaken under the Ayush Grid project. It was observed that in the last two years Ayush Grid project succeeded in bridging the digital gap in the Ayush Sector and also in implementing various critical healthcare IT projects.

The Ayush Grid project was initiated by the Ministry in 2018 for creating a comprehensive IT backbone for the entire sector. Digitalization of the entire Ayush Sector will lead to its transformation in fields of health care delivery at all levels, including research, education, various health programmes and drug regulations. This will be beneficial for all stakeholders of Ayush including citizens of the country and in turn will help to achieve various national and global goals in healthcare.

The most significant among the different initiatives implemented so far in the project is the AYUSH Health Management Information System (AHMIS). Originally based on THERAN, an HMIS developed in-house by the Siddha Research Council, Chennai, the AHMIS has now emerged into a robust, cloud-based Information System used by nearly100 Clinical establishment of the AYUSH Ministry. Further, the services of M/s Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Bangalore has recently been enlisted to rapidly enhance its scope. The Ministry is also preparing to deploy AHMIS to Ayush units outside the Central Government umbrella, so that the entire Ayush Sector can make use of it.

Another success of Ayush Grid is the development and implementation of the Ayush Sanjivani mobile app and the Yoga locator mobile app, to meet the urgent demands of the concerned Divisions of the Ministry. These applications have a combined down-load number of 6 lakhs, and have served their objective of reaching out to a large audience in a short time satisfactorily.

During the initial weeks of Covid-19 pandemic, the Ministry launched various crowd sourcing activities for gathering Covid-19 inputs as well as mobilising Ayush volunteers. Further, a Covid-19 dashboard was also set up for real time information. The Ayush Grid project was able to support such critical initiatives related to managing the health crisis, despite various lock down related constraints.

Under the Ayush Grid, a customised IT course for Ayush Professionals was developed in collaboration with C-DAC, Pune. Nearly 200 Ayush professionals including a few from stake-holding institutions outside government were trained as part of this initiative.

This has helped considerably to bridge the digital gap in Ayush sector, and these professionals will play an important role in taking the digitisation of the sector forward. The other successful projects implemented as part of Ayush Grid include the Telemedicine programme launched with C-DAC on 1st November 2019 as a pilot project in Siddha system. Since lock down, it is functional for Homoeopathy and Ayurveda systems also. Nearly 20,000 people have been served through this.

An ambitious project to support Ayush education is being launched with the name Ayush Next. This has been developed, and is expected to go online soon.

The components of Ayush Grid initiative will cover all the verticals of the Ayush Sector, like Health Services, Education, Ayush Research, Central Sector and Centrally Sponsored Schemes, Training Programmes, Citizen Centric Services, Drug Licencing Portal, and Media Outreach.

The Ayush Grid is steadily developing through its constituent projects. It is expected to emerge as a comprehensive IT backbone serving 8 lakh Ayush physicians and nearly 50 crore citizens within three years.