'Modi Govt working on One Product One District plan for States': Piyush Goyal

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry is working with states on a 'One Product One District' programme, and will soon be unveiling a programme where every district in the country will be focussing its energies on the outreach of their own products of excellence, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday.

The OPOD scheme had been adopted by many states like Uttar Pradesh where each district gets to build clusters for producing a particular manufactured good and are given special incentives, to decentralise industrial development. Goyal said the Centre is confident of adding manufacturing output worth at least Rs 20 lakh crore in the next five years.

"We have identified 24 products in partnership with industry, we are confident of adding at least Rs 20 lakh crore manufacturing output in the next five years. It will create jobs, expand economic activity and will lead the way towards India's rightful place," he said. Goyal also revealed that the Centre has started a pilot of a 'Land Bank' where more than 1 lakh hectares of industrial land is available for industry to come and start manufacturing in India.

The Minister was speaking at the release of the State Business Reform Action Plan 2019 Ranking on Friday. The index ranks states on Ease of Doing Business (EODB) through areas like Access to Information and Transparency, Single Window System, Construction Permit Enablers, land administration etc. The list has been topped by Andra Pradesh for the second consecutive time, followed by Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand.

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'Rankings are competitive'

Talking about the EODB ranking, Piyush Goyal said the rankings released today are a reflection of the efforts made by the States. "The rankings are competitive; India is among the very few nations which have state-specific rankings, which will, in turn, help the nation improve its ranking," he said.

"We all believe that cooperation on one hand & competition on the other will collectively drive the nation faster towards a $5 trillion economy by 2025. Business Reform Action Plan of States is reflection of confidence our states have, that they can do better and work for the prosperity of the people. The ranking reflects the effort that different states are doing towards bettering their systems and processes," Goyal added.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri were also part of the event. The exercise to rank all States/UTs in the country on the basis of reforms undertaken by them has been initiated in 2014, to create a conducive business environment by streamlining regulatory structures and by creating an investor-friendly business climate, the government said in a statement.

(ANI photo)

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