Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced, while presenting the India’s budget 2022, the innovative idea of ‘one station, one product’ for the country’s extensive railway network, one of the longest in the world.
The idea is to better promote supply chain of local product using the railways and making each railway station a promotional hub and showcase destination for a local product. This will help develop more efficient logistics for farmers and agri-enterprises and present unique regional products to a wide audience, i.e. railway travellers, passing through the stations. One station, one product takes forward the ‘one district, one product’ programme of the government which has successfully started promoting unique products from every district of India.
Indian Railways is among the world’s largest rail network, and its route length network is spread over 67,956 kms, with 13,169 passenger trains and 8,479 freight trains, plying 23 million travellers and 3 million tonnes (MT) of freight daily from 7,349 stations. India's railway network is recognised as one of the largest railway systems in the world under single management. Since August 2020, the Indian Railways has also run 450 Kisan Rail services and was able to transport over 1.45 lakh tonnes of agricultural produce & perishables.
The concept of ‘One station one product' to help local businesses and supply chains as announced in Budget 2022, has based itself on the successful One District One Product (ODOP) scheme. Based on a district's strengths, ODOP has been a transformational step towards realising the true potential of a district, fuel economic growth, generate employment and rural entrepreneurship.
As ODOP programme completes four years in India’s largest state, the success of the ODOP in Uttar Pradesh have inspired several other Indian states to adopt similar initiatives for district-level revival of local crafts and products. To realize the true economic potential of rural India and align it with the clarion call of the Prime Minister to make ‘Vocal for Local, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry is putting in place an institutional mechanism to propagate ‘One District One Product’ as a movement with the help of all state governments and Union Territories. The objective will be to identify one product per district based on the strength of a district and develop a cluster ensuring quality, scalability with market linkages.
With the similar idea of ‘One station one product', focus will continue to be placed on enabling ecosystem and providing stable marketing platform to improve income, local employment, skills and livelihood. The ‘One station one product' now acquires further significance and relevance in the context of the pioneering “Aatma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan” campaign launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the aim to strengthen the domestic industries and make India self-reliant.
