ODOP products of UP will be showcased in Dubai Expo 2020: Navneet Sehgal

Lucknow, Sep 11 (UNI) The One District, One Product (ODOP) products of Uttar Pradesh which have gained national and international market have proved to be an important tool in generating self-employment and adding to the economy of MSME sector in the state, now will be showcased in Dubai Expo 2020.

The ODOP has come out as an effective way of self-employment which the Yogi government promoted considering well that the traditional crafts have immense potential and the artisans needed hand holding though a slew of measures taken by the state government, said Navneet Sehgal, Additional Chief Secretary, MSME, UP here on Saturday.

Speaking about the unique scheme of ODOP, he said that the basic aim behind One District One Product scheme has been to encourage local craft and local craftsmen and do two things–One is to revive the local craft and then also improve the chances of livelihoods and employment of all those groups which are involved in those crafts.

Elaborating on the scheme, ACS said that now, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in 2018 had announced the scheme of one district one product and encourage a local cluster-based craft.

“Over the world, this is a known phenomenon but to improve on the industry particularly the micro and the smaller industry, the best way is to create clusters and then work on those clusters, create infrastructure, create both soft and hard infrastructure, to improve their productivity, improve their quality, improve their packaging, improve their marketability, thus improve their livelihoods and improve employment opportunity”.

The department is training almost twenty thousand craftsmen each year out of the 75 districts in their existing trade, the existing craft so that they can be taught about the latest technologies, the latest techniques of production. Also, they are being provided with a toolkit.
“We have signed MoUs, agreements with the national and international organisations for providing support like we have a signed agreement with the Quality Council of India to handhold and help them to improve their quality. Then we had signed an agreement with the Indian Institute of packaging to help them to improve their packaging,” he informed.

To ease the hardships of these artisans in selling their produce, the department has signed MoUs with Amazon and Flipkart to help them to market their produce. “We have also now created our own E-marketplace, ODOP e-Mart, where these artisans are being onboarded to sell their products through the e-commerce portal,” he added.

A sufficient budget has been provided by the government for the scheme. The emphasis of the Government on the ODOP has helped the state to improve its export because most of the craft is being exported overseas and the export has risen by almost 30% in the last 3 years. “ It was 83000 crores, now last year we clicked 1.21 crores and the emphasis on training, providing incentive and tying up with the technical advisory services is helping them to improve the export as well,” said Mr Sehgal.

The state government is also planning to launch these ODOP products in the international market. “We are also now planning to take part in the Dubai- 2020, it will be a big pavilion for ODOP to showcase our traditional crafts, ODOP products in the foreign market. So, these efforts are being done not only to improve their visibility but also marketability in the foreign markets,” said Mr Sehgal.

UNI MB SHK2110