ODOP Needs Streamlining for Success

The ODOP initiative has significant potential given its aim to achieve a district’s true potential by utilising economies of scale, product specialisation through identification and promotion through marketing, and creation of employment opportunities. The ODOP initiative is trying to raise awareness of ODOP products as well as their benefits of buying them, in domestic and international markets. Thus, the scheme offers an opportunity to strengthen local products having health, environmental or other benefits. This will help enable India to become a stronger economy.

With an aim to accelerate the country’s exports and further push the Prime Minister’s vision of ‘AtmaNirbhar Bharat’, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) launched the One District One Product (ODOP) Scheme. According to the Ministry, the scheme adopts the ODOP approach to reap the benefit of scale in terms of procurement of inputs, availing common services and marketing of products. The ODOP scheme provides the framework for value chain development and alignment of support infrastructure. As a way to promote socioeconomic development throughout the country, the ODOP scheme selects, brands, and promotes a single product from each of the country’s districts. The selection of products spans the country and touches on a variety of industries and communities that have already established their own distinct identities. As part of the AtmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, which aims to modernise existing units by providing financial and technical assistance, ODOP has been implemented in agriculture. Farmers can receive up to 35 per cent federal subsidy and an additional 15 per cent from the state under this programme. Farmers can also get loans of up to Rs 10 lakh from nationalised banks to improve or build new agricultural facilities. The project will also help women’s self-help groups, cottage businesses, and cooperatives, in addition to farmers and farmer producer organisations. An initiative for uniform economic development To achieve AtmaNirbhar Bharat, the initiative DOP is being hailed as a game-changing step in realising a district’s full potential, igniting economic growth and fostering rural entrepreneurship. The ODOP initiative was launched by the Uttar Pradesh Government on January 24, 2018 and due to its success, it was later adopted by the Central Government. This initiative is carried out with the ‘Districts as Exports Hub’ initiative by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Department of Commerce, with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) as a major stakeholder. Institutional mechanisms in the form of State Export Promotion Committee (SEPC) and District Export Promotion Committee (DEPC) have been constituted in all the 36 states/UTs to provide support for export promotion and address the bottlenecks for export growth in the districts.
Districts’ Export Action Plans include specific actions required to support local exporters/ manufacturers in producing/manufacturing identified products in adequate quantity and with the requisite quality, for reaching potential buyers outside India. The plans also focus on the interventions required to provide an ecosystem for innovation/ use of technology at the district level to make them export competitive. Government of India works with the States/UTs at the local level to implement the initiative to create conducive environment for the exporters and manufacturers to export their products to international markets.

To read more click: E-Magazine – Agrospectrum India

The ODOP initiative has significant potential given