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The five-year Foreign Trade Policy to be announced next month is likely to give a further push to the government’s One District One Product (ODOP) initiative by providing incentives and support to items with export potential from identified districts.
“A lot of work is already being done in the Commerce & Industry Ministry to promote the ODOP initiative by working closely with States and UTs. The FTP is likely to give more incentive for production of such items with export potential,” an official told BusinessLine . Exporters’ body FIEO is carrying out a study to identify high-potential items from various districts that could be incentivised.
“We are doing a study on 25 districts and have already completed identification of items in five districts,” said Ajay Sahai, Director-General, FIEO. The five year FTP, which got delayed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, is likely to be announced on April 1.
The ODOP initiative has the strong backing of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who sees it as an extension of the ‘Make in India’ programme and in also line with ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat.
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), under the Department of Commerce, has already started the process of engaging with State and Central government agencies to promote the initiative of ODOP after its merger with the ‘Districts as Export Hub’ initiative.
Objective of ODOP
The objective of ODOP is to convert each district of the country into an export hub by identifying products with export potential in the district, addressing bottlenecks for exporting these products, supporting local exporters/manufacturers to scale up manufacturing, and finding potential buyers outside India with the aim of promoting exports, promoting manufacturing and services industry in the district and generating local employment, according to the Commerce Department.
“The DGFT is in talks with States and UTs to ensure that the scheme is implemented in a phased manner by identifying products with the potential to make the district an export hub,” the official said.
The FTP may identify its own set of districts and products with the highest export potential to give these a further boost and strengthen the ODOP initiative, the official said.
Based on ODOP, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI), in partnership with States, launched an all India Centrally Sponsored PM Formalisation of Micro food processing Enterprises Scheme (PM FME Scheme) recently.
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