The Central Government is trying to put in place a system which will not only ensure minimum support price to tribal produce but also get maximum remunerative price.
Informing this to media persons here on Sunday, Union Minister for Tribal Welfare and Panchayati Raj V. Kishore Chandra Deo said that he was working on a policy paper on minor forest produce in this regard. “All the states are stakeholders. We will hold a meeting with them. Today I held a meeting at the Girijan Cooperative Corporation with our people for two and a half hours. It was fruitful. Shortly we will have a policy to ensure that exploitation is not there,” he said. On the bauxite and laterite mining issues, he said that the question was put to him a hundred times and he had abundantly made it clear that the proposal was not cleared and nor would it be in the near future. It was not possible to take up any mining activity without holding gram sabha and obtaining the consent of the local Girijans. There should be a majority resolution, he said.
When a reporter brought to the notice of Mr. Deo that a private company was going ahead with the construction of an aluminium factory at Makavaripalem in Visakhapatnam district and the bauxite for it had to come from the district, he replied that he did not know how the company was going ahead with the construction. "Perhaps, they will import bauxite from Japan and some other place. Bauxite is one of the issues agitating the tribals and so it is ruled out. The Governor has special powers to stop such mining in scheduled areas and they can be invoked even without the consent of the State Cabinet. If necessary, we will request the Governor to use such powers," he said. Earlier in the day, Mr. Deo witnessed an exhibition of GCC products at GCC office here. GCC Managing Director B. Trinatha Rao gave a PowerPoint presentation of GCC activities during a review meeting that followed.
