UP plans to rope in e-commerce players for marketing boost to MSMEs

President Ram Nath Kovind will inaugurate UP MSME Summit on Aug 10. A MoU with Amazon will be signed on the occasion

Eyeing to revive Uttar Pradesh’s MSME and traditional sectors, the Yogi Adityanath government plans to take on board e-commerce giants such as Amazon for global marketing and the branding of the state’s products under its flagship ‘One District One Product’ (ODOP) scheme.

The government is hosting an ODOP Summit on August 10 that would be inaugurated by President Ram Nath Kovind. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) would be signed with Amazon on the occasion, while talks with other e-commerce players are underway for a similar arrangement.

“Under the MoU, Amazon would provide marketing support to traditional industries of nine districts, including Gorakhpur, Agra, Meerut, Varanasi, Kanpur, Aligarh etc. The company would onboard producers in these places over its online marketplace and also create a mirco-site dedicated to our ODOP scheme,” UP Mirco, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) secretary Bhuvnesh Kumar told the media.

Earlier, the state had signed a MoU with Amazon for showcasing ‘UP Khadi’ online and training artisans.

UP MSME Minister Satyadev Pachauri said bank loans to the tune of Rs 5 billion would be provided to entrepreneurs across the state on August 10 to expand their businesses or set up new businesses dedicated to traditional industries.

He said UP would leverage various central programmes such as Startup India, MUDRA etc. for the turnaround of the state’s traditional sector. The aim is to create jobs, check migration of youth and ease pressure on urban centres.

UP is famous for product-specific traditional industrial hubs. Some standout names are: Varanasi (Banarasi sari), Bhadohi (carpet), Lucknow (chikan), Kanpur (leather goods), Agra (leather footwear), Aligarh (lock), Moradabad (brassware), Meerut and Saharanpur (wooden products), among others.

The government also plans to provide financial support to MSMEs. There are talks of forming alliances with big shopping malls for marketing of traditional products. In the first phase, the state is considering to launch 1,000 ODOP outlets at busy places such as railway stations.

The state also plans to establish ODOP clusters at Ambedkar Nagar, Etawah, Gautam Budh Nagar, Hapur, Barabanki, Agra, Kanpur City, Kanpur Dehat, Hamirpur and Fatehpur.

UP is home to 5 million MSMEs and the sector forms a vital cog in the state’s economic development roadmap. Exports from the state’s MSME sector had clocked 6% growth to touch Rs 890 billion in 2017-18 over the Rs 840-billion figure of 2016-17. The sector contributes 60% of UP’s industrial output, employs 40 million people and generates direct economic activity worth Rs 1.2 trillion.