Recently which of the following authority has initiated pilots in seven districts across five states to boost unique agricultural products under the one district one product programme?

Solution

To boost unique agricultural products under the one district one product (ODOP) programme, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) has initiated pilots in seven districts across five states for providing necessary infrastructure and financial assistance through convergence mode which would allow access of the farmers and exporters to common facilities such as cooling chamber and pack houses and other infrastructure along with the capacity building of key stakeholders in the exports value chain. The districts include Lucknow (mango) in Uttar Pradesh; Nagpur (mandarin orange), Nasik (onion), Sangli (grapes) in Maharashtra, Krishna (mango) in Andhra Pradesh ,Kumuram Bheem (millets) in Telangana and Dharmapuri (millets) in Tamil Nadu. APEDA has also formed export promotion forums for boosting exports of grapes, onions, mango, banana, pomegranate, floriculture, rice, dairy products, and nutri-cereals. For the current fiscal, an export target of $ 23.56 billion has been fixed by APEDA for the agricultural and processed food products basket. The lsquo;One District, One Productrsquo; (ODOP) was launched by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, to help districts reach their full potential, foster economic and socio-cultural growth, and create employment opportunities, especially, in rural areas. It aims to do this by identifying, promoting and branding a product from one district. The One District One Product scheme aims to turn every district in India, into an export hub through promotion of the product in which the district specialises. The initiative plans to accomplish this by scaling manufacturing, supporting local businesses, finding potential foreign customers and so on, thus helping to achieve the lsquo;Atmanirbhar Bharatrsquo; vision.The one district one product launch date is January 24, 2018, by the Uttar Pradesh Government, and due to its success, was later adopted by the Central Government.