During the 2018 Investors’ Summit, many dignitaries, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, applauded Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for his government’s very creative scheme to promote local entrepreneurs –One District One Product (ODOP). The aim of ODOP is to encourage more visibility and sale of indigenous and specialised products of each district of Uttar Pradesh, generating employment at the district level. In this project, one particular product is selected from every district of Uttar Pradesh. Such a product is selected from each district, which is traditionally famous for its production and manufacturing in that particular district. For example—Silk Saree of Varanasi, Leather products of Agra, Kala Namak Rice of Siddhartha Nagar, Metal Craft of Moradabad, Wood Crafting of Saharanpur, Chikankari work of Lucknow, Carpets of Bhadohi, Sports products of Meerut, Jaggery of Ayodhya etc. Many of these products are GI-tagged (Geographical Indication), which means they are formally certified as specific to the Uttar Pradesh region. ODOP aims to make product-specific traditional industrial hubs in each of the 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh. In the last four years, ODOP has provided a huge impetus to the traditional industries across various districts of UP. Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to ODOP as a great example and extension of Make in India, and now Central Government is launching ODOP nationally.
After the district-product combination identification, they were further categorised based on the kind of support they needed :
- Mature districts/products: Those which are stable and require intervention for upgrading the quality to match international standards.
- Established districts/products: Those with a high scope of growth require moderate interventions in infra, tech, and finance.
- Budding districts/products: Those at early stages of maturity and require a high level of infra, tech, and finance interventions.
- Declining districts/products: Those that have peaked in the past and are declining now need intervention to reinvent and enter the business cycle again.
After meticulously identifying the various stages in which a particular district lies concerning that product, the Yogi Government provided four important support pillars to the local entrepreneurs:
- Common Facility Centre (CFC) Scheme: Under this scheme, common gaps in the ODOP value chain of a particular district were addressed by setting up a Common Facility Centre for testing, design development, raw material bank, exhibition centre, Common Logistics Centre etc.
- Marketing Development Assistance Scheme: Under this scheme, financial assistance is provided to all participants for attending and displaying their products in national and international exhibitions and fairs.
- Finance Assistance Scheme (Margin Money Scheme) : Under this scheme, the UP Government aims to benefit artisans, workers, and entrepreneurs through the financial assistance of up to Rs 20 lakh per applicant depending upon the project’s cost. All national, rural and scheduled banks are covered to provide this financial assistance.
- Skill Development Scheme : Under, the State Government aims to fulfil current and future skilled workforce requirements and equip the artisans and workers with relevant skill sets.
ODOP has collaborated with several stakeholders like Quality Control of India (QCI) for making ODOP products quality compliant, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU), Lucknow, as a knowledge partner to bridge the Industry-Academia gap, National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) to improve the designs of ODOP products and large scale e-commerce players like Flipkart, Amazon and eBay to provide access to national and global customers. The Government of UP has appointed Manikarnika – The Queen of Jhansi-fame actress Kangana Ranaut, as the brand ambassador for the ODOP programme. At present, more than 11,000 products of ODOP are available on leading e-commerce platforms.
The state of Uttar Pradesh has reaped huge benefits from the Yogi Government’s innovative ODOP programme. It has enhanced the State’s export capacity by 35 per cent. Under the special drive of ODOP and Vishwakarma Shram Samman, 3.14 lakh entrepreneurs have been benefitted. Five lakh youth have established their ventures under ODOP by receiving loans under Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana, Stand-Up and Start-Up India. In the last four years, the ODOP scheme became a landmark programme for the country, taking rural employment and entrepreneurship to the district level. The manufacturing process of many of these products was dying community traditions that are being revived through modernisation and publicisation under ODOP.
