To shift the focus of economic policies toward India’s export promotion and to leverage foreign trade for more sustained growth, the Indian government identifies each district as an export hub. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry gives the data for the special products and services of districts with export potential. The objective is to focus on each District as a platform for the broad and global reach of products and services through innovative e-commerce and digital marketing.
The data is represented in the form of a geospatial heat map on the geographical map of India. The products and service categories attributed to various districts are represented with a unique color, imparting a mottled aspect. Users can access the filter option to investigate the different districts associated with each product or service category, listed as a custom value index. As in the case of one district one product blog, a meticulous glance into the dashboard brings out how the prevalence of unique products and services in the districts are coherent with the geographical, climatic, and cultural factors in different regions. Since India's cultural and geographical features are hugely varied, from snow-capped mountains to coastal stretches and evergreen forests to wetlands and deserts, the variety of products & services also differs at a similar pace. The extreme variation of a region's physical, cultural, and geographical features reflects the wide range of special products and services with export potential in the districts.
Selecting a particular product category allows one to view the different districts associated with its production. For example, on selecting ‘Agri product’ from the custom value list of special products and services filter option, the dashboard visualizes all the districts associated with the production of ‘Agri Product.’ Here, one can observe that most of the districts linked with the export of ‘Agri product’ are located in Haryana, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh. Similarly, if one wants to explore the districts associated with the relevant industrial components, let us suppose, ‘Aluminium castings’, the dashboard reveals the districts producing the same. In this case, Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu are districts that export Aluminium castings.
Hovering around the filters to explore special products and services across different regions of India, we can notice how the different features of a region play a key role in determining the range of special products and services with export potential in the districts of that region. For instance, the products and services in districts of the Northern states are predominated by horticultural, agricultural, and woolen textiles. For example, Apricots, Sea Buckthorn, and Apple (Anantnag, Jammu, Kargil, Leh-Ladakh. Srinagar, etc.), Pashmina Shawl (Leh-Ladakh, Kargil), Kinnauri Shawl (Kinnaur), Kullu Shawl (Kullu) are produced in the northern districts because of the favoring climatic and cultural factors.
Besides, export of Dairy products (Anand, Jalor, Banas Kantha, Mahesana), Agri products (Anand, Banas Kantha, Dohad, Kheda, Mahesana, Panch mahals, Patan, Tapi), Handicraft items (Jaisalmer, Jodhpur) among others, predominate in the western districts. In the eastern states, products like Anthurium (Aizawl, Mamit, Lawangtlai, Lunglei, West Siang, Zunheboto, Tuensang), Bamboo (Anjaw, Cachar, Dibrugarh, Dhemaji, Kokrajhar, Kurung Kamey, Upper Subansiri), Tea (Baksa, Cachar, Chirang, Dibang valley, Dima Hasao, Darjiling, Kokrajhar, among other districts), and fruits like Apple provide great export opportunities to the region. Similarly, in the southern area, items like coconut, coconut & coir products, desiccated coconut powder (Tumkur, Coimbatore, districts of Andaman & Nicobar, Visakhapatnam, and Kanniyakumari), Banana (Anantapur, Chamrajnagar, Mandya, Shimoga, Theni, Thrissur, Thiruvananthapuram) provide a significant portion of export potential to the region.
Having looked at the diversity of particular products and services across various districts in the different regions of India, it is evident that the strength of India’s trade market resides in its diversity. While numerous emerging and big businesses are entering the Indian markets, the special products and services with export potential provide promising scope to boost the Indian economy by leveraging foreign trade. Nevertheless, a lot has to be done to optimally use the export potential by encouraging the resourceful utilization of special products and services of each district.