LUCKNOW: The products of Uttar Pradesh being promoted under the state government’s One District, One Product (ODOP) Scheme are going places, literally.
The state government is planning to launch ODOP products in international market and plans are afoot to showcase the products in the Dubai Expo 2020.
“There will be a big pavilion for ODOP in Dubai Expo to showcase our traditional crafts and products in the foreign market. Efforts are being made not only to improve their visibility but also their marketability in foreign markets,” said additional chief secretary, MSME, Navneet Sehgal.
“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 government,” he said.
He said the objective of the ODOP scheme was to encourage local craft and local craftsmen and revive the local craft while improving the chances of livelihoods and employment.
“Over the world, this is a known phenomenon but to improve the industry, particularly micro and smaller industry, the best way is to create clusters and then work on it, create infrastructure, to improve productivity, quality, packaging and marketability,” he said.
The department is training almost 20,000 craftsmen each year out of the 75 districts in their existing trade so that they can be informed about the latest technologies.
“We have signed MoUs, agreements with the national and international organisations to provide support. We signed an agreement with the Indian Institute of Packaging to help improve packaging skills,” Sehgal said.
To ease the hardships of these artisans in selling produce, the department has signed MoUs with Amazon and Flipkart to help them to market their products. “We have also created our own e-marketplace, ODOP e-Mart, where these artisans are being onboarded to sell their products through e-commerce portal,” he added.
