When the PM came shopping !

Pravir Krishna
Contd from previous issue
These showrooms are strategically located in airports, prime commercial districts in metros and large cities and other locations of high footfalls of potential buyers. The website of Tribes India carries the complete list of outlets.  
Trifed realized that shopping-culture is shifting from the showroom-mode to the online mode. To keep pace with this trend, Trifed has set up an e-portal, www.tribesindia.com. The object is to put tribal artisans and products on the platform of global e-market. The intent is to achieve several goals at once. The demand for the products will expand exponentially; the middleman and his share will accrue to the tribal artisan; the artisan will move on from distress-price to best price; and all these together will result in strengthening tribal livelihoods without removing them from their habitats. This implies tribal empowerment in the truest sense.
If the tribes turned underprivileged, a major reason for this was illiteracy. In today’s world, literacy has a new avtar: e-literacy, the ability to sell online. The amazing opportunity online commerce offers is to democratize peoples, cutting across Nationality, gender, and geographical location. Internet has provided new avenues to market linkage. This has put Sarita in remote Dindori at par with a merchant in Mumbai. Both can connect with equal ease to a buyer, say, in New York. It would be a sin to deprive the tribal artisans and producers of the opportunity online commerce offers. Our intention, therefore, is to go vocal about the local and buy Tribal to make it global.  
After he had done his shopping of tribal products online on the portal of Tribes India, the Prime Minister, tweeted wonderful words of encouragement and shared his experience with his Cabinet colleagues. Soon, we had celebrities visiting our portal and shopping. Whereas the portal earlier had a modest two thousand visitors a day, the number soared to over thirty thousand over-night. What the Prime Minister of India did is what Trifed would like to see every Chief Minister and every Corporate leader doing: shop from outlets and on e-com portal of Tribes India, and then encourage all to do likewise. We call on all  Corporates for shopping for gifts, folders, fabrics be guided by a simple principle: Tribal India, first ! Overnight you can help us hugely expand our customer and market base. Tribes India is the one place where when you shop you do more than shopping; you discover a different, vibrant India and strengthen the livelihoods of thousands of Saritas, Monishas and Rupalis. This adds a new dimension to Corporate Social Responsibility. I am sure  the captains of India Inc are listening.
PIB (Pravir Krishna, IAS, is MD of TRIFED)