One Village: One Product
- Programme faces funding hurdle
Despite an overwhelming demand for the ‘One Village: One Product (OVOP)’ programme from districts, the government and the private sector have not been able to extend the scheme.
Inspired by the Japanese model of identifying each district with its distinct product, the government, under the public private partnership (PPP) model, had initiated the programme some five years ago. The overall objective of the programme is to alleviate poverty and develop entrepreneurship among local people.
The Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), which has been implementing the programme, said it has not been able to extend the programme due to lack of funds. “Encouraged by the success and effectiveness of this programme in some districts, several other districts have demanded that their products be included,” said Ganesh Shakya, senior programme officer of OVOP at FNCCI.
Shakya, however, said due to resource constraint and absence of a clear policy guiding the programme, FNCCI has not been able to expand the programme. “Even new proposals could not be brought under discussion for want of funds,” said Shakya.
The OVOP Secretariat has received requests from Taplejung and Panchthar districts for cardamom, Terathum for ginger, Bhoajpur for orange, Jhapa for betel nuts and Saptari for mango. Other proposals are from Mustang for apple, Humla for atis (herbal plant), Surkhet for turmeric and Bajura for amriso (broom grass), among others. Besides, requests have also been made for the inclusion of programmes like agricultural tourism, religious tourism, wild life tourisms and village tourism.
“Although we envision to continuously extending the programme to all districts, we have not yet decided how and where to begin,” said Shakya, “As we don’t have adequate resources and a clear working policy, we can’t begin the extension programme promptly.” The budget for current fiscal year has also prioritised the implementation of OVOP programme, stating, “Employment and income generating opportunities will be created in villages by making the ‘One Village One Product’ programme more effective.”
The government has allotted Rs 40 million for the programme. “This amount is quite insufficient to aggressively implement the programme. Either the government should provide enough budgets or allow the private sector to solely undertake the programme,” said another FNCCI official.
Hari Babu Tiwari, senior agricultural economist at the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, however, said as OVOP is a new programme, preparations require a lot of time and resources. “Including products and districts under OVOP is not a big deal, but the included products should receive benefits from the programme,” he said. “Therefore, first we will try to create value addition to the products already included in the programme, and the second step would be including additional products.”
As of now, eleven districts with eight agricultural products have been included under the ‘One Village: One Product’ programme. The products include junar from Sindhuli and Ramechhap; orchid from Lalitpur; lokta from Dolkha; coffee from Syangja and lapsi from Bhaktapur, among others.
Posted on: 2011-12-18 09:49
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