Piyush Goyal Urges Tribal Communities To Fast-Track GI Tags

• Commerce Minister calls on tribal communities to accelerate GI tagging of traditional crafts and produce at the ‘Tribal Business Conclave 2025’ in New Delhi.
• GI registration fee reduced from Rs 5,000 to Rs 1,000 to boost participation and preserve India’s heritage and tribal traditions.
• Govt to support tribal exports via e-commerce, global retail channels, and branding transforming 'Van Dhan' into 'Vyapar Dhan'

In a keynote address at the ‘Tribal Business Conclave 2025’ in New Delhi, Piyush Goyal, Union Minister for Commerce & Industry, delivered a strong call to accelerate the GI tagging of traditional crafts and produce of India’s tribal communities. He underlined how the recent reduction of the GI registration fee from Rs 5,000 to Rs 1,000 is an 80 percent reduction to enable wider inclusion of tribal products and thereby preserve India's heritage, crafts, and oral traditions.

He said that the transformation of tribal-produced goods from 'Van Dhan' to 'Vyapar Dhan' will be ensured, and the Government is committed to this. All tribal products having potential for export would be provided support through e-commerce platforms, international warehouse display-and-sales channels, and wholesale/retail networks by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade and the Ministry of Commerce. Both domestic and global markets are to be opened for tribal entrepreneurs.

The conclave, held in collaboration with the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and the Ministry of Culture, also marked the distribution of GI certificates to tribal artisans from across India. Among the various crafts and produce that were recognized include the Kerala-based 'Kannadippaya' bamboo mat, Apatani textile from Arunachal Pradesh, Marthandam honey of Tamil Nadu, Lepcha Tungbuk from Sikkim, Bodo Aronai from Assam, Ambaji white marble from Gujarat, and Bedu and Badri cow ghee from Uttarakhand. These awards symbolize recognition of indigenous knowledge-systems and seek to enhance the brand value of tribal goods in modern markets.

Goyal recalled the heritage of Birsa Munda, commemorating the 150th anniversary of his birth and urging the nation to draw inspiration from his legacy of indigenous empowerment. He also reaffirmed that the Government views the upliftment of tribal communities as integral to India’s development agenda. He pointed out that more than 3,900 'Van Dhan Kendras' have thus far catalysed the economic participation of about 12 lakh tribal members, and that under the PM scheme for particularly vulnerable tribal groups, roughly 50 lakh families across India have benefitted through allocation of about Rs 24,000 crore.

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The Minister brought into focus a larger vision when he said that India's growth story will not be complete unless its indigenous communities thrive. He underlined that heritage preservation, cultural identity, and contemporary enterprise are deeply inter-linked, and that by enabling access of tribal artisans to global value-chains, India can ensure heritage continuity and economic justice.

In other words, he said the traditional knowledge contained in the tribal craft must be safeguarded, formalized, and converted into sustainable livelihoods, and the corridor for this lies through stronger branding, quality assurance, market access, and a reduced-barrier GI ecosystem.

By urging tribal artisans to hasten the process of applications of GI tags and by signalling the shift from local production to international commerce, the government is laying the groundwork for a more inclusive trade-architecture wherein tribal communities are not just beneficiaries but active brand-owners.

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