UP govt's ODOP scheme: Beneficiaries make profits, provide employment to others

By Ravi Bhushan Dwivedi
Hardoi (Uttar Pradesh) [India], May 8 : Beneficiaries of the One District One Product (ODOP) scheme not only gained profit but also generated employment for others.
Uttar Pradesh government started a scheme where they are providing loans to help small businesses.

Iqbal Hussain, who runs a handloom business in Mallawan Village of Hardoi District, said that this is his ancestral work, which has been going on for the last several years. Through this government scheme, he had taken a loan of Rs 10 lakh and built a factory at home.
At present, he is employing about 50 weavers. Iqbal deals with making kurta and other clothes.
Another beneficiary Mahashar Hussain, who runs a factory, said that he had taken a loan of Rs 25 lakh for this work and started the factory in the village itself. Here he works in making towels. He has employed about 20 weavers.
Mahashar says that he sources threads from Panipat, which are then put on the handloom machine to make towels. Apart from Uttar Pradesh, he supplies towels to Bihar, Rajasthan and Haryana.
A weaver Amjad said that he makes about 20 towels a day and gets a wage of up to Rs 15 for each towel. Be it a factory owner or a weaver, everyone does this work ancestrally. The weaver says that he had learned this work from his grandfather.
The village falls in the Mishrikh Parliamentary constituency of UP which will cast its vote on May 13.