It will be aimed at encouraging people to produce local (rural) products with the use of home-grown skills and expertise. Said to be, essentially, based on Thailand's 'One Tambon (village) One Product' (OTOP) rural model, which had enthralled Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz during his last visit to that country, as an effective tool for revival of long depressed industrial activity in our rural areas.
The Prime Minister had indicated that Pakistan would review and adopt the model. It will be recalled that in July a special cell was reported as being set up at the SMEDA, to promote the Prime Minister's "One Village-One Product" campaign, and that it had been marked for conversion into an independent organisation, with a view to ensuring its smooth functioning.
From all indications, the latest development points to the progress the Smeda has since achieved in that direction.
The Smeda Chief Executive Officer is stated to have given a presentation to the Prime Minister, while apprising him of a report given to the Minister for Industries, Production and Special Initiatives on Rural Cluster Development Programmes around the world.
The report highlighted the models of Japan 'OVOP' and Thailand's 'OTOP'. Seemingly, a combination of both, Smeda's AHAN can be seen as making a departure from OTOP's primary focus on rural areas. For the tentative products that have been identified under the pilot phase and the target areas are textiles - mainly in Sindh; silverware - mainly in Bahawalpur city; blue pottery - mainly around Multan, Nasarpur and Hala, and Kiln - mainly in Balochistan.
It has also been stated that the Industries and Production Minister had proposed setting up of an organisation on the lines of National OTOP Administrative Board of Thailand.
Through its regional offices in provincial capitals, the new organisation would arrange to set up management companies in pilot districts. However, AHAN's primary objective would be to prepare and lead activities for technological assistance and marketing support to unleash comparative advantage of selected rural clusters for their economic empowerment.
As such, the Rural Enterprise Modernisation Cell in Phase I would take 12 months for completion. Its focus of activities would be to develop industrial strengths around the selected products, and it would be responsible for management and co-ordination of specialised resources for developing enterprise/cluster development, product development, quality assurance and technical assistance, and marketing and distribution.
The AHAN cell would work under the guidance of a project steering committee. To be headed by the Minister for Industries, Production and Special Initiatives, Jahangir Tareen, the committee would comprise Minister of State for Economic Affairs Division, Secretary Industries, Secretary Commerce and Chief Executive Officer of SMEDA from the public sector, and seven members from the private sector.
Moreover, the project has been marked for implementation in two phases. Under the proposed scheme of things, Phase-I would be devoted to a review of the existing secondary sources of data and studies on rural non-farm enterprises; and identification of key knowledge gaps, additional research to develop a purposeful information base on the rural non-farm economy. As for Phase-II, it would be managed by a Chief Executive Officer, supported by a team leaders and professionals from the relevant fields.
Significantly, AHAN Pakistan would also expand its geographical outreach from resort to rural industry development projects in additional sub-sectors and clusters identified for good prospects for growth.
As earlier pointed out in these columns, following assignment of the task to Smeda, which, seemingly excited by the prospects of the new scheme, appeared to be hastening with its implementation from a combination of approaches. It had earlier been reported that initially 13 products were selected for the programme, and marked for launch in eight districts of four provinces in the first phase that would be expanded to include other parts of the country later.
This has now been curtailed, with no evident emphasis on rural industries as such. Also missing seems to be the needed reliance on the private sector, which should be encouraged to focus rural areas from the unfailing approach of enlightened self-interest.
Reference, in this regard, may also be made to the neglect of the local bodies in the rural areas, on which the Prime Minister had initially focused. It will be in the fitness of things, however, to ensure against preponderance of bureaucracy in the laudable efforts for emulating the Thai example.