Understanding Backwardness of Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Role of ODOP scheme: A Study of Aspirational Districts. This major project is sponsored by ICSSR, New Delhi under the IMPRESS scheme jointly to Dr. Roli Misra, dept of Economics and Dr. Nagendra Kumar Maurya from dept of Applied Economics, University of Lucknow.
In this project four Aspirational districts from eastern UP have been selected. Every district has their own unique product classified by the U.P government under its ODOP scheme.
The objective of this project is to understand the causes of backwardness of these districts and will the ODOP scheme be a game changer to enhance income and employment in those areas and will it be helpful in reducing out migration?
On testing the viability of products declared by the government as representative product of Shravasti and Balrampur the research team during their field visits to Haraiya village, tulsipur block and Bhagwatiganj found that in case of Balrampur the red lentils (masur dal) which is declared as the product of the district is facing tough competition from lentils imported from Australia and Canada as the farmers are not aware and are not getting subsidies for the production of the red lentils.
In the case of another district Shravasti where tribal craft of Tharus has been declared as the district’s representative product the team in Bachkahi , Katkuiyan, Raniapur villages of Sirsiya block found that art form is not commercialized. Most of the Tharus are unaware about the ODOP scheme and are the tribal art produced is for their own consumption and not for the market.
In case of both the products which have been made representative products of the district there is a need to spread awarenes and ensure that farmers should be included in the list of beneficiaries . Regarding Tharu product, they need to give proper training and tool kit, only then their product can be successfully titled as the Speciality of the district. Findings have emerged from door to door collection of data through questionnaire and focus group discussions conducted by survey team.
