Tribal Women Beneficiaries of PMVDVY in Southern Rajasthan: A Profile Analysis with Implications for Forest-Based Livelihoods

Objective: To describe socio-personal, socio-economic, communication and psychological characteristics of registered tribal women beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Vikas Yojana (PMVDVY) in selected villages of southern Rajasthan and compare descriptive distributions across two districts. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive survey included 400 women from Sirohi and Udaipur. Districts, blocks and villages were purposively selected, followed by simple random selection of 20 beneficiaries within each of 20 villages. Semi-structured interviews were summarised using frequencies, percentages and reported composite-score categories. Results: Overall, 60.75% were classified as middle-aged, 51.75% had secondary education, 65.25% belonged to joint families and 58.00% had marginal landholdings. Agriculture combined with business or self-employment was the largest occupational category (57.00%). Medium score categories predominated for information seeking (56.50%), information sharing (54.00%), mass media exposure (61.00%), risk orientation (52.50%), economic motivation (58.50%) and market orientation (60.00%). The districts differed descriptively in educational attainment, income grouping and market-orientation distributions. Conclusion: The results identify characteristics relevant to local extension planning but do not quantify programme impacts. Purposive geographical selection, reliance on self-reports and absence of item-level scale data limit generalisability and independent assessment of measurement properties.