UPSC Mains 2019 GS Paper 1 Q6: model answer

Uttar Pradesh's One District One Product scheme (2018), later made national, picked a local product for each district: Moradabad brass, Bhadohi carpets, Firozabad glass. The idea is regional resource-based manufacturing.

How it promotes employment

• Labour-intensive: food processing, textiles, handicrafts, leather and bamboo use many hands.
• Local jobs reduce distress migration.
• Lower costs: raw materials nearby cut transport costs.
• MSME clusters grow around one product.
• Backward linkages to farmers, miners and artisans, and forward links to transport, packaging and retail.
• Women and youth find work close to home in processing and crafts.

Examples

• Food parks in Punjab and Maharashtra; cashew in Kollam; bamboo in Tripura; coir in Alappuzha.
• Tiruppur knitwear grew from local cotton and skills into an export hub employing lakhs.

Limits

• Poor infrastructure, power and credit.
• Low technology and branding.
• Risk of resource depletion and pollution.
• Small scale limits exports and quality control.

Verdict

Yes, it can help, especially in lagging regions, if backed by common facility centres, skills, cheap finance, GI branding and e-commerce links. It turns local endowment into local employment.