Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Kashi Ek Roop Anek, a cultural arts and handicrafts exhibition, at the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Hastkala Sankul in Varanasi on February 16. It showcased products from over 10,000 artisans from all over Uttar Pradesh.

The Uttar Pradesh government had launched the ambitious ‘One District, One Product’ (ODOP) programme in which one craft per district was identified. The state government has established raw material banks, testing labs, common facility centres, and facilitated direct market access to artisans and weavers and helping them improve their income.

What is the ODOP programme?

The One District, One Product programme is aimed at creating product-specific traditional industrial hubs across 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh, which will promote traditional industries that are synonymous with the respective districts of the state.

It was inaugurated on January 24, 2018 by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on the day of Uttar Pradesh Divas. It also aims to encourage more visibility and sale of indigenous and specialised products / crafts of Uttar Pradesh, generating employment at district level.

In this project, one particular product is selected from every district of Uttar Pradesh. The selected product under ODOP is traditionally famous for their production and manufacturing from that particular district.

There are products in UP that are found nowhere else - like the ancient and nutritious ‘kala namak’ rice, the rare and intriguing wheat-stalk craft, world-famous chikankari and zari-zardozi work on clothes, and the intricate and stunning horn and bone work that uses the remains of dead animals rather than live ones, a nature-friendly replacement for ivory.

Many of these products are GI-tagged, which means they are certified as being specific to that region in Uttar Pradesh.

Under the ODOP programme, artisans, production units and associations which are related to the selected products are promoted by lending loan, establishing common facility centres, providing marketing assistance so these products can be popularised and jobs can be generated at the district level.

Objectives of the scheme

* Secure preservation and development of local crafts / skills and promotion of the art.

* Provide employment to youth and promote the competitive ecosystem in the state.

* Capacity building and promotion of local skills.

* Preventing migration by improving income and local employment in the state.

* Improvement in product quality and skill development.

* Increase overall exports of the selected products.

* Promote ODOP products at the global level with a structured approach.

Provisions under ODOP

Common Facility Centre: To establish a CFC which would encompass activities like testing lab, common logistics centre, packaging and barcoding facilities, technical research centre, etc.

Marketing Development Assistance: It is aimed at achieving fair pricing for the artisans, weavers, entrepreneurs and exporters of ODOP products through better marketing.

Finance Assistance: All nationalised banks, regional rural banks and other scheduled banks will finance the scheme and the department of MSMEs and department of export promotion will release the ODOP margin money subsidy against all applications submitted under the scheme.

Skill Development: It is aimed at fulfilling current and future requirements of skilled workforce in the entire value chain of ODOP products, across the state of Uttar Pradesh. Additionally, the scheme intends to equip artisans / workers through the distribution of relevant advanced toolkits.

Aiming for a $1 trillion economy

Yogi Adityanath has said his government’s ODOP scheme will play an important role in turning the state into a $1 trillion economy by 2024. “The MSME sector already existed, but was neglected for the past 15-20 years without any government support. We started the ODOP scheme and encouraging results have already started pouring in,” he said.

Pointing out the spurt in export from the state in 2018-19 after the launch of the scheme, Adityanath said, “Export of Bhadohi carpets has doubled from Rs 4,000 crore to Rs 8,000 crore. Most of the districts have their own signature industry. The districts too should fix some target to contribute to this goal of making the state a $1 trillion economy.”

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