The Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh (UP) has launched 'One District, One Product' scheme to help artisans of the culturally-rich state preserve their heritage in a more profitable and economically secure way.
The scheme, according to the UP government, will create some five lakh jobs.
The idea behind the scheme is to help artisans of particular districts which have come to be traditionally associated with certain traditional art and craft forms and are usually famed all over the world. Moreover, the move is aimed at targeting the Dalits and minorities of the country apart from giving a fillip to traditional crafts.
Insiders told DNA that the party was trying hard to repeat its performance in the next Lok Sabha elections in the state and such moves were also aimed at countering Opposition attempts to use such incidents as Bhima-Koregaon caste violence to put the Centre on the mat.
"Most of the centres of excellence in traditional crafts in UP have been traditional spaces of respective artisans and this is an attempt to make the artisans economically secure. Lucknow, for exampe, is associated with Chiakan-kari, Varanasi for Zardozi, Moradabad for metal work, Aligarh for locks etc. The state funded schemes and the Centre's such schemes as Mudra, Start Up India, Stand Up India etc will come on the same platform to help artisans. Nodal officers have already been appointed and the MSME ministry will be the nodal ministry for the purpose," UP Cabinet minister Sidharth Nath Singh told DNA.
The scheme, said Singh, would be integrated the grass-roots level of districts up to the state and the national level. "At the district level the district magistrates have been made the nodal officers."
The scheme
The idea behind the scheme is to help artisans of particular districts which have come to be traditionally associated with certain traditional art and craft forms.
