Continued low expenditure in 'Minimum Support Price for Minor Forest Produce' scheme

Union Minister for Finance, Arun Jaitley revealed some details about the scheme for ensuring a Minimum Support Price for Minor Forest Produce (MSP for MFP) in his budget speech on Thursday. 

The Fiscal Year 2017-18 saw an expenditure of just 25 per cent of the budgetary allocation estimates for the same year. Of the Rs. 100 crore allocated to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA), only Rs. 25 crore was spent. 

The MSP for MFP scheme was launched in 2013-14. It aimed at improving the financial condition of forest-dwelling communities living in the country. The importance of such a scheme can be gauged by the fact that the Planning Commission accounted MFPs for 20 to 40 per cent of the income of these communities.  

While the scheme was started with a sum of Rs. 967.28 crore as Central Government share and Rs. 249.50 crore as the states' share in 2013, over the years, the funds have continuously dwindled along with its utilisation. 

Although the budgetary allocation for the the scheme, mentioned as “Development of value chain for MFP” has gone down, during the same time the money allocated for “Mechanism for Marketing of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) through Minimum Support Price(MSP)” has gone up. 

The later allocation, which, till the budget of 2015-16 was combined with Development of value chain for MFP section, has since been made a separate category called, “Institutional Support for Development and Marketing of Tribal Products”.

It is interesting to note that while the money for the development of MFP chains has gone down, the money for developing institutions for it has gone up.