5 districts to get common facility centres

Lucknow: In an effort to promote small and medium industries under the government’s one district-one product scheme, five districts are set to get common facility centres where artists and craftspersons will get access to packaging, marketing, raw material etc locally, under one roof. The five CFCs are set to be inaugurated by chief minister Yogi Adityanath in the districts of Agra, Sitapur, Azamgarh, Siddharthnagar and Ambedkar Nagar in the coming days. These are being set up at a cost of Rs 18.92 crore.

Additional chief secretary (MSME) Navneet Sehgal, who was reviewing the status of CFCs in the state, said that under the CFC scheme, Rs 3.3 crore had been sanctioned for a leather goods training centre to boost the leather shoe industry in Agra, while Rs 2.25 crore had been sanctioned for a design and sampling facility, exhibition and selling centre, a common processing centre and raw material bank for the hand woven carpets segment from Sitapur.

Similarly, for the black pottery craft from Azamgarh, Rs 1.82 crore has been sanctioned for a common production centre where artisans will get the facility of machines and equipment. Another Rs 6.96 crore is being spent on a raw processing mill, warehouse and vacuum packaging facility for Siddharthnagar’s kala namak rice. The government is also spending Rs 4.6 crore on a textile and raw material bank, common processing centre and warping and calendar machine in Ambedkar Nagar.

Sehgal said that over the past three years, 40 CFCs have been sanctioned out of which work is on to complete 22. Out of these, five are expected to be inaugurated very soon. CFCs are being set up in each district, with a focus on the ODOP product identified from the area. In addition to this, three CFCs are being set up under the central government’s MSE-CDP scheme.