The Uttar Pradesh government plans to launch its own e-commerce website dedicated to goods identified under the state’s flagship scheme of one district-one product (ODOP).
A senior government official told IANS that the field trial for the portal is taking place which, when launched, will "give competition to websites like Amazon and Flipkart" and promote the state's handicraft at an international platform.
"Anyone who is registered with GST can sell their product on the website. Those artisans who are not registered can also be included on the platform as sub-vendors. At the time of a sale, a direct message is sent to the vendor and a call is made through a helpline to inform the vendor to keep the product ready. The logistics partner will then pick up the product and deliver it," the official said.
Additional Chief Secretary, MSME, Navneet Sehgal told IANS that an ODOP Mart is also being set up by the UP Handicrafts Development & Marketing Corporation. This will benefit artisans who do not have GST registration.
Buyers will also be assured of the quality and authenticity of the product which they purchase through the mart.
"Free cataloguing is being done of ODOP products and an ODOP Mart app will also be launched soon," he said. Sehgal said that in the previous two and a half years, 11,000 products under 15 categories have been sold on e-commerce sites like Flipkart and Amazon.
More than 355 artists and artisans have registered on these sites and have earned more than Rs 24 crore.
According to ODOP's website, the UP government’s One District, One Product Programme aims to encourage indigenous and specialized products and crafts. "There are products in UP that are found nowhere else – like the ancient and nutritious 'Kala namak' rice, the rare and intriguing wheat-stalk craft, world-famous chikankari and zari-zardozi work on clothes, and the intricate and stunning horn and bone work that uses the remains of dead animals rather than live ones, a nature-friendly replacement for ivory. Many of these products are GI-tagged, which means they are certified as being specific to that region in Uttar Pradesh. Many of these were also dying community traditions that are being revived through modernization and publicization," it said.
The Programme is aimed at creating product-specific traditional industrial hubs across 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh that will promote traditional industries that are synonymous with the respective districts of the state.
Here are the main objectives of the One District One Product Programme:
Preservation and development of local crafts/skills and promotion of the art.
Increase in the incomes and local employment (resulting in decline in migration for employment).
Improvement in product quality and skill development.
Transforming the products in an artistic way (through packaging, branding).
To connect the production with tourism (Live demo and sales outlet – gifts and souvenir).
To resolve the issues of economic difference and regional imbalance.
To take the concept of ODOP to national and international level after successful implementation at State level.
