Indian Railways’ Bilaspur station promotes locally-made products, gives positive momentum to ‘One Station One Product’ scheme

financialexpress.com:

Indian Railways‘ ‘One Station One Product’ (OSOP) scheme is proving beneficial for promoting ‘Vocal for Local’ vision and to provide a market to sell local or indigenous products. The scheme was first launched on March 25, 2002 on a pilot basis. These stalls have been designed by the National Design Institute for uniformity.

Recently, Ministry of Railways has opened an OSOP outlets at Chattisgarh’s Bilaspur railway station. The stations falls under the jurisdiction of Bilaspur Division of South East Central Railway (SECR) zone.

The railway station is hosting a unique range of home-made decorative items. One of the major products of this station is – Tribal handicraft. The passengers can buy the products from these shops and can make payment using cash or UPI mode.

As on May 01, 2023, a total of 728 stations have been covered with 785 OSOP outlets across 21 states and 3 Union Territories. In Chhattisgarh, the national transporter is offering OSOP outlets at 12 railway stations. These are – Bhatapara, Bilaspur, Champa, Dalli Rajhara, Dongargarh, Durg, Korba, Marauda, Raigarh, Raipur, Sakti and Uslapur.

The products available on these outlets include Bastar Art Items, Bell Metal, Wrought Iron, Tumba Art, Tribal Handicraft, Art metal, Millets based products, Decorative items etc.

Earlier this year, Southern Railway (SR) zone has invited Expression of interests (EoI) from the interested parties for full scale implementation of OSOP scheme. The zonal railway has targeted to open the outlets at 483 stations. These stations spread across six divisions – 133 stations in Chennai division, 95 in Madurai Division, 93 in Tiruchchirappalli division and 65, 56 and 41 in the divisions of Thiruvananthapuram, Palakkad and Salem