• GCC (Girijan Co-operative Corporation).
• DPIP/ SERP.
• Others.

Girijan Co-operative Corporation is an AP government undertaking established in 1956 for socio-economic upliftment of tribals in the state. The structure of GCC is two tier one with it being a federation of its member co-operatives known as Girijan Primary Co-operative Marketing Societies (GPCMS). GCC and GPCMS are registered under AP Cooperative Societies Act, 1964. The bylaws of GCC mention that it is expected "to act as agent for the Government for procurement, supply and distribution of agricultural and other produce or other goods as and when required to do so". The objectives of the organisation are -

• To ensure payment of remunerative prices for the NTFP collected by the tribals by eliminating middlemen and private traders who were indulging in unfair trade practices.
• To ensure availability of essential commodities even in the interior agency areas through a network of DR (Domestic Requirements) depots.
• To provide support to the tribals in agricultural activities through extending credit facilities.
  

GCC is governed by a board of management consisting of Chairman and officials and non-official directors appointed by the state government. A Managing Director, an IAS officer who also acts as the Vice Chairman of the board, administers the affairs of the corporation. The corporation works in close co-ordination with 10 ITDAs and the project officers of the ITDAs act as Executive Directors of GCC in the area of their operations. The organisation is headquartered at Visakhapatnam.

The organisation to fulfil its objectives procures and sells NTFP and SAPs, supplies daily requirements, and provides credit. The credit is provided by obtaining refinance from NABARD and also through its own sources and functioning as a District Co-operative Bank. GPCMS acts as Mandal level stockist and transport contractor for AP Civil Supplies Corporation. The concessions granted to the corporation for achieving its objectives and ensuring its smooth operations are -

• The government waived forest rentals for the initial years
• The government provides staff subsidy
• Government has waived commercial taxes for the products handled by the corporation.
• GCC does not pay security deposits unlike other forest contractors
• Officers of the corporation are empowered to stop, detain, and examine at any place, any vehicle and seize stocks not covered by valid transport permit and to make further legal proceedings against the offenders.
• Under the AP forest produce transit rules, the government regulated movement of forest produce in the states through specified forest permits and the branch managers of GCC are empowered to issue the permits.
  

The GPCMSs used to be the branches of GCC, but were later converted into primary cooperatives. The GCC Divisional Managers were made Chairpersons of the GPCMSs in their division. The 18-member GCC Board of Directors is expected, according to the bylaws, to have only 5 elected Directors. The union government nominates two Directors, and the state government nominates the rest (11), including the Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson and Managing Director. The state government has the right, as specified in the bylaws, to veto any resolution of the general body or the board, until such time as the government share in equity is fully redeemed by the GCC. 1835 staffs are employed in the corporation that has a network of 1 regional office, 9 divisional offices, 45 GPCMS and 839 DR depots. Salaries in the structure used to be paid for by state government till recently, and now, a part is borne by GCC.

The membership for GPCMS is open only to people from local tribal communities. As mentioned in the previous chapters, GCC has monopoly right to procure and trade in certain forest produces. The produces procured are then sold as such or after value addition through auctions and/or tenders. Now, GCC is asking for advance tenders for buying of forest produces it intends to buy. This helps it in knowing the demand in the market and GCC accordingly fixes its procurement targets. This also helps in fixing the prices of NTFP thereby reducing the risk element in GCC's operations.

Procurement of NTFP is traditionally carried out in weekly shandies in the tribal areas. GCC identifies centrally located tribal villages and opens purchase centres. The DR centres also operate as purchase centres for NTFP. The procurement operations are carried out through the field level network e.g. Credit cum Purchase Assistant and Salesman of DR depots under the supervision of Branch/ Divisional Managers. Spot payment is made for the produce purchased from tribals. Since the DR depots at the same time sales daily requirements, goods can be exchanged for cash equivalent of forest produces sold.

GCC markets produce with value additions where possible and also under takes research and development activities to improve the quality / quantity of the product. The procurement being huge in terms of quantity are stored in the GCC or government godowns and sold whenever it gets the right price. This itself is a value addition and GCC has been successful in preventing the distress sale of the forest produces by the primary gatherers.
Pricing being a key factor in the procurement, GCC makes provisions to publicise its prices fixed. This also ensures no underpayment by the agency functionaries. The prices are announced through Radio programmes, Tom - tom/ megaphones in all major shandies, and pamphlets distributed and pasted in depots. The ITDA network also is used for the purpose.

GCC's NTFP turnover has been given in the following figures. From its beginning in 1956-57, the turnover has gone up to Rs. 20 crores in 2000-01. Though this does not look a big figure, the growth is high given the constraints under which it operates and looking at its counterparts in other states. The procurement was rather very low till the late 60s. Between 1978-79 and 1988-89, procurement figures grew by nearly 2 times. Similarly between 1988-89 and 2000-01, NTFP turnover has grown by nearly 4 times. However the procurement has taken a sharp dip in 2001-02. The total procurement was Rs. 156 crores against Rs. 249 crores in the previous year. 2000-01 incidentally is the only year in the recent past when sales have dropped below procurement. Is this the reason for lower procurement the next year given that the government support is reducing? This also indicates that GCC has been incurring cash profits in NTFP if one does not take into account the institutional expenses.

Figure : GCC NTFP Turnover (In Rs. Lakhs)

Figure : GCC NTFP Turnover (In Rs. Lakhs)

Information about overall business of GCC over the past few years is provided in the following table. The figures clearly indicate that procurement of NTFP is not the first priority of GCC. It is the supply of consumption items or daily requirements that occupies prime space in GCC's turnover. The growth rate of DR sales has in fact been higher then the growth of procurement. Supply of agricultural inputs and credit disbursement is a miniscule part of its turnover and has decreased over the years.

• It has established processing units to convert produces in raw form to consumer goods. Prominent among them are - honey processing unit, Sheekakai and soap nut unit, soap making unit and tamarind packing unit. The honey produced by GCC is of premium grade and is popular in the retail market. Where earlier, it used to be sold only through GCC's retail outlets; it is now available in Hyderabad in most large retail stores.
• The co-operative gives training to tribals on scientific collection of NTFP to improve the quality and realise higher sale value. Adoption of new techniques in Gum Karaya tapping has led to increase in quality yields and in turn payment of higher purchase prices to tribals. The prices have increased from Rs. 30 / KG to Rs. 125/ KG in a span of 10 years.
• GCC has taken up regeneration of important NTFP species in the forest areas of north coastal districts of AP through the FD. The project has a financial outlay of Rs. 50 Lakhs.
• GCC is now trying to develop brand equity for its products in the name of 'GIRIJAN' brand. The idea is to ensure that products ranging from neem soap, turmeric soap, honey, sheekakai powder to rajma and tamarind, get a place in the supermarkets all across the country. Various consumer friendly packages of consumer goods that are made from produces collected by the tribals have been developed for the same. The marketing plank of GCC for its products is the fact that they are all nature-based.
• In a bid to enlarge its products basket, GCC has made new additions to the NTFP procured by adding products such as medicinal herbs, French beans (white), and white beans.
• GCC has adopted retail marketing of its products to reach the end consumers directly. Most of the edible products are sold in its DR shops as well as retail outlets. Similarly it supplies wild brooms to the municipal corporation of Hyderabad. Apart from selling products through chains of retails shops, it has been trying to develop a retail chain of its own in various districts of the state. GCC achieved a turnover of Rs. 31.6 crores under retail sale in the year 2001-02. The organisation also supplies consumer products to welfare hostels, jails, endowments, PSU co-operatives.
• Another area that GCC is planning to enter is marketing of a bio-flocculent that could be used to extract uranium from the ore to a maximum extent because of its high capability to bind atomic minerals. A seed called stychnos potatorum is grown extensively in the tribal areas in the State that has high bio-flocculent properties. The National Metallurgical Laboratory at Jamshedpur and Uranium Corporation of India are presently engaged in research to extract the basic substance from the seed, which can bind uranium. GCC has already applied for a patent for this product, which will be a very high-value product.
• Apart from distributing domestic requirements, the organisation is also distributing LPG connections to women under poverty line through a AP government scheme. Now under the proposal of decentralisation it has begun to handover DR depots to SHGs. GCC also undertook the responsibility of distributing rice for the Food for Work undertaken in the region where it operates.
• There have been instances when GCC has paid bonus in case of benefits accrued in certain commodities. In the system of commodity bonus introduced for the first time in 1991-92, where 50% of the profit earned by GCC in the marketing of a commodity procured from tribals was ploughed back. This was done in the soapnuts, maize, paddy, cotton, niger seed and gum. However in the recent years this practice has been discontinued.
• In Comparison to other neighbouring states where NTFP are available, notably Orissa, Chhatisgarh and Maharastra, prices offered by GCC to the primary collectors are higher. This is specially so in Tamarind and Gum. Agreeably, GCC has developed the best marketing network among the states. However GCC also gets the highest amount of subsidy of all its contemporaries.
  GCC has the potential to become a major player in the nature-based products market, with the tribal areas in Andhra Pradesh having a wealth of minor forest and agricultural produce. Studies have shown that tribal areas in the State have Rs 18 crore worth tamarind, 2,500 MT of French beans worth Rs 45 crore, Rs. 20 crore worth Adda leaf and another Rs 20 crore worth medicinal plants. But the organisation is hardly tapping 10 % of the forest wealth at present.
  

2. DPIP/ SERP

Some of the ITDAs/ DPIP have been experimenting with organising NTFP collectors into groups with a view to provide them improved implements, training, market intelligence and small value addition facilities. Some of such groups are able to collect better quality produce and also able to approach the market directly thereby realising a higher price then would have been possible otherwise.

ITDAs/ DPIPs have proposed to increase the scope of such groups and also to federate them at local and bigger level into MACS so that these groups could benefit to a greater extent by collection, storage, processing and marketing of NTFP. In this manner the groups besides gaining the bargaining power, will be able to specialise in optimum handling and sustainable harvesting of NTFP.

To obviate the activities of these groups from clashing with monopoly rights of GCC, it is proposed to wherein GCC will allow NTFP pickers' association to deal with their produce effectively and also pass on its monopoly rights to the MACS formed by such associations to establish marketing, processing and value addition facilities.

3. Others

Several VDOs, such as Samata, Sakti, Laya and ARTIC, have organised tribal communities around their rights to the forests, and livelihoods. They have helped them form informal collectives/cooperatives, with ARTIC now beginning to promote cooperatives under the new law. SHGs promoted by NGOs and government agencies do primary processing and sell the produces at the nearest city. Though illegal, they are able to do it as it is on a lower scale. Food World, a big retail chain is ready to procure from SHGs but wants assured supply.

Some of the local NGOs such as Laya in East Godavari and Kovel Foundation in Visakhapatnam involved in promotion of medicinal plants have imparted training to tribals, about medicinal plants, its uses and harvesting.