"Community-owned enterprises such as Van Dhan Vikas Kendras can be tools for women's empowerment in tribal areas. Critically analyse." (10 m)

Van Dhan Vikas Kendras (VDVKs) are the basic unit of the Pradhan Mantri Janjatiya Vikas Mission (PMJVM). Each VDVK groups about 15 SHGs, or roughly 300 forest gatherers, and at least 60% of members must be Scheduled Tribes [1]. Minor Forest Produce (MFP) provides 20–40% of tribal household income [1], and women do most of its collection. Co-owned VDVKs can therefore empower women, but so far they have done so only partly.

How VDVKs can empower tribal women

• Ownership, not wage labour: members co-own the processing unit instead of selling raw produce to middlemen. Their income also stops depending only on seasonal farming [1].
• Collective voice: SHGs build savings, group decision-making and bargaining power. 4,172 sanctioned VDVKs cover 12.48 lakh members [1].
• Skills and markets: VDVKs provide training, working capital, branding, GI tags and links to Haat Bazaars [1].
• Legal backing: the FRA 2006 gives the right to collect and sell MFP. PESA 1996 gives Gram Panchayats in Fifth Schedule areas ownership of MFP [1].

Limitations

• Implementation gap: only 2,911 of 4,172 sanctioned VDVKs (about 70%) were functional on 31 July 2026 [1].
• Thin earnings: functional VDVKs have sold goods worth about ₹168 crore [1], roughly ₹5.8 lakh per centre. That is around ₹2,000 per member, and it is sales, not profit. The mission's five-year outlay was ₹1,612 crore [2].
• Counting people, not income: official figures report enrolment. They give no data on women's earnings or on their say in decisions.
• Weak State capacity: in Ladakh, VDVKs did not take off because State Implementing Agencies were short of staff [3].
• Old marketing problems: a Parliamentary Standing Committee report on TRIFED pointed to poor quality, unsteady supply and prices that could not compete [4]. Merging the earlier schemes into PMJVM [5] does not fix these problems by itself.
• Ecological burden: paying for volume can encourage over-harvesting. Women collectors would bear the cost of depleted forests.

VDVKs give tribal women ownership, a group platform and legal backing. However, many sanctioned centres are not yet working and earnings are low, so the empowerment is still more potential than real. The way forward:

• publish income per member, broken down by sex;
• staff the State agencies;
• merge centres that never started;
• buy first from villages whose Gram Sabha has a Community Forest Resource plan.

With these steps, VDVKs can advance SDG 5 and the Fifth Schedule's promise of tribal self-governance.