The “One District One Product” Experiment

The state government of Uttar Pradesh is working diligently to grow the state's economy to $1 trillion and boost its share of India's GDP from the current 8% to 15–16%. The "One District One Product (ODOP)" programme was one crucial programme that was introduced in 2018 to achieve this goal. ODOP seeks to revitalise the economy by fostering regional development by utilising local talent, resources, and expertise. Modelled after the Japanese “One Village One Product” programme of the 1980s, the ODOP aims at economic revitalisation by boosting regional development through community-based resources, talent and knowledge.

The programme seeks to create industrial hubs, each specialising in a particular traditional product, in 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh (like leather goods from Agra and jaggery from Ayodhya). Anyone who lives in Uttar Pradesh, with a minimum age of 18 years and has not previously received any tool kit from the State or the Central Government is eligible to apply for this programme. Two hundred fifty crore rupees were set aside as the scheme's initial seed funding. According to government estimates, this programme has produced earnings of at least Rs 89,000 crore and provided 5 lakh jobs to young people in MSME units and industrial hubs.

The ODOP programme consists of four schemes. They are-

1. The Common Facility Center Scheme (CFC) aims to support the development of a value chain through infrastructure. It includes the creation of facilities like a testing lab, a raw material bank, labelling, packaging, and a barcoding facility, among others.
2. The Marketing Development Assistance Scheme (MDA) aims to give those involved in producing and selling ODOP products a reasonable price.
3. The Finance Assistance Scheme, also known as the Margin Money Scheme aims to give banks financial support in exchange for the ODOP margin money subsidy made available by the Department of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and the Department of Export Promotion.
4. The skill-development and toolkit development scheme aims to offer free advanced toolkits, training, and compensation for the training period to ODOP product producers.

The success of ODOP inspired the Central Government to set aside a fund of Rs 4,500-4,800 crores in its current budget. The money will be used to set up export hubs at the district level throughout the country. These hubs will serve as pilot projects, and it will be extended to 750 districts later. And keeping pace with this allocation for balanced regional growth starting at the grass-root level, the UP government has allocated another Rs200 crore for its flagship ODOP scheme to promote the marketing of articles through the proposed Unity Mall.

In response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to recognise that "each district of our country has a potential equal to that of one country" and that there is a "need to understand this power and facilitate this potential," the ODOP is a sincere attempt to draw attention to the immense potential that India's rich culture and tradition have to offer.

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