Districts As Export Hubs Initiative 2019

Policy Update
Siddhant Koul

Background

India’s merchandise exports reached a record US451 billion FY23,up from US 315 billion in FY14, an average annual growth of 5.2 percent over the period (ODOP-DEH Study 2023). The recent trend is weaker. When the Reserve Bank of India reduced its benchmark policy rate in December 2025, the Governor highlighted declining exports as a key area of concern. Over FY15 to FY25, merchandise exports grew at a CAGR of just 3.4 percent,((The Hindu BusinessLine, 2025). while labour-intensive sectors such as textiles and apparel, gems and jewellery, leather products and agricultural goods grew even slower, at 2 to 2.5 percent, and high-value electronics and automobiles largely buoyed the basket (The Hindu BusinessLine, 2025).

Exports are also concentrated. In FY23, petroleum products made up over 21 percent of exports, followed by pearls and precious stones (5.6 percent), drug formulations and biologicals (4.3 percent), iron and steel (3 percent) and telecom instruments (2.8 percent); the top five commodities together accounted for 37 percent. The top five states contributed nearly 70 percent, with Gujarat (33.1 percent) and Maharashtra (16.1 percent) leading, while the top ten districts, less than 2 percent of the country’s total, accounted for almost 41 percent (ODOP-DEH Study). This makes states, and districts within them, the relevant units for identifying champion products.

The Districts as Export Hubs (DEH) initiative responds to this by treating every district as a unit of export planning, not merely of production, in line with Aatmanirbhar Bharat and Vocal for Local (DGFT, 2026). It grew out of One District One Product (ODOP), launched by the Uttar Pradesh Government in 2018 and later adopted by the Centre. By March 2023, ODOP had been approved for 713 of 766 districts under the PMFME Scheme. ODOP was merged with DEH in 2022, and the Foreign Trade Policy of March 2023 gave DEH special emphasis within a US$2 trillion export target for 2030 (ODOP-DEH Study). The logic is specialisation: a region concentrating on a few products builds skills, economies of scale and a brand identity, and encourages value chains and clusters in which suppliers, manufacturers, designers and service providers share knowledge and resources (ODOP-DEH Study).

This piece argues that DEH is right to make the district the unit of export planning, but that its progress is currently measured in plans rather than exports: only 249 of 590 draft plans are formally adopted, and the framework has no funding window of its own.

Functioning

DEH runs on three layers of coordination (DGFT, 2026). (i) The Department of Commerce sets policy direction, while the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) anchors implementation, coordinates stakeholders and monitors progress. (ii) State Export Promotion Committees (SEPCs) guide implementation and ensure convergence across departments. (iii) District Export Promotion Committees (DEPCs) identify export opportunities, resolve local challenges and coordinate with industry and exporters.

The DEPCs’ core task is preparing District Export Action Plans (DEAPs), which map products and services with export potential, assess infrastructure and logistics, identify bottlenecks and recommend interventions. DEH is not a standalone scheme: it has no separate funding window, and district interventions draw on existing Central and State programmes (DGFT, 2026).

To build export readiness, DGFT Regional Authorities and district administrations run capacity-building programmes on logistics, export procedures, packaging norms and compliance, with ECGC, EPCH, FIEO, the Ministry of MSME, India Post and Exim Bank as partners. The programmes also address e-commerce challenges such as payments, trust and buyer verification, and postal export facilities are offered through Dak Ghar Niryat Kendras. With Exim Bank, DGFT is also supporting six districts (Anantapur, Raipur, Solan, Tiruppur, Kanpur and Kolhapur) under the Grassroots Initiatives for Development (GRID) programme, which addresses sector-specific constraints and develops district-specific interventions (DGFT, 2026).

From 1 June 2026, the Government moved to an outcome-oriented, phased approach. Phase I encompasses districts spread over 27 States and UTs with 24 DGFT Regional Offices and 11 partner organizations. It aims at registrations of new exporters and getting more export value from existing GI products and MSME clusters. (DGFT, 2026). Sector ministries are building on this. The textiles ministry plans to identify 5,000 to 10,000 new exporters over two to three years to increase India’s share in the global textile market, working with states on district-level export road maps. It has identified 100 champion districts (high exports, mature ecosystems) and 100 aspirational districts (low export base, untapped potential in handloom, handicrafts, apparel, cotton textiles, man-made fibre products and home textiles). Around 530 districts currently participate in textile exports (Economic Times, 2026).

Performance

More than 770 districts were covered by DEH as of January 2026. By March 2026, draft DEAPs had been prepared for 590, of which 249 had been formally adopted by their DEPCs (The Policy Edge, 2026).

Table 1: DEH Implementation Pipeline

Stage	Districts
Covered by DEH (January 2026)	770+
Draft DEAPs prepared (March 2026)	590
DEAPs formally adopted by DEPCs (March 2026)	249

Source: Compiled by author from The Policy Edge (2026)

The gap between these three numbers is the clearest measure of implementation progress. A draft plan can identify products, infrastructure gaps and possible interventions, but formal adoption is what establishes district-level priorities and institutional ownership (The Policy Edge, 2026). The shift to measurable outcomes from June 2026 appears intended to move the programme beyond mapping exercises. However, the material reviewed contains no data yet on the stated indicators, new exporter registrations and export value.

Impact

The opportunity DEH targets is large. The ODOP-DEH study identifies 59 “missing middle” districts across 20 States/UTs, each exporting US1to5billionandtogetheraccountingfor29percentofIndia’sexports(US130.7 billion) in FY23 (ODOP-DEH Study). It is worth being precise about what this figure shows: it sizes the opportunity on an FY23 baseline, before DEH’s current phase, and is not a measured result of the initiative. The textile plan’s 5,000 to 10,000 new exporters is likewise a target, not an outcome.

The distribution of gains within a district matters as much as the total. In Amroha, 15 exporters account for ₹2,300 to 2,400 crore of the district’s ₹2,880 crore in exports, and the analysis notes that this concentration is typical across many districts, while micro and nano units contribute only a small share despite forming the overwhelming majority of units (The Hindu BusinessLine, 2025). A district’s export value can therefore rise without its smallest producers exporting more.

Finally, any claim that DEH raised exports will have to be judged against a weak baseline, a 3.4 percent CAGR over FY15 to FY25 , and will need to separate DEH’s contribution from the broader trend.(The Hindu BusinessLine, 2025)

Emerging Issues

Plans without a funding line. As DEH operates as a unifying framework, a DEAP can pinpoint a shortfall in testing labs or logistics, though it lacks the authority to fund such needs. Suitable Central or State schemes must be found and applications forwarded by the nodal departments responsible for infrastructure, skills or testing labs, logistics or enterprise support services etc (The Policy Edge, 20-26). Adoption is thus required but not sufficient condition for implementation: even of the 249 plans that have been adopted.

A data blind spot. State Export Promotion Bureaus list only the exporters registered with them, about 25 to 30 percent of the exporter universe in Uttar Pradesh. The DGFT holds the most exhaustive list of Import-Export Code holders but does not share district-wise data with the Bureaus, leaving districts effectively blind (The Hindu BusinessLine, 2025). Plans drawn up without knowing who a district’s exporters are, what they produce or what challenges they face will be of limited use.

Micro units and intermediaries. About 95 percent of enterprises in Uttar Pradesh’s manufacturing export landscape are micro and nano units, often run from homes or small workshops. Lacking knowledge of export documentation and importers’ compliance requirements, they depend on trading houses and merchant exporters, who connect them to markets but also capture a substantial share of the value. The analysis finds DEH wanting in this respect and argues that effective market-based mechanisms are needed (The Hindu BusinessLine, 2025).

One framework, different districts. DEH aims to unlock every district, yet the study finds ten districts generating almost 41 percent of exports and directs attention to the 59 missing middle districts, while the textile plan separates champion from aspirational districts (ODOP-DEH Study; Economic Times, 2026). A uniform pan-India template will not work.

Way Forward

Close the data blind spot first. A joint DGFT-State Export Promotion Bureau pilot for district-wise IEC data sharing should be run in 3-5 states within six months, with anonymised aggregate statistics published quarterly. DGFT should share district-wise IEC holder data with State Export Promotion Bureaus, so that DEPCs can build a unified exporter database before DEAPs are adopted — plans drawn up without this data will continue to be of limited use.

Track adoption and outcomes, not coverage. The Department of Commerce should publish the number of draft versus adopted DEAPs, alongside the stated outcome indicators of new exporter registrations and export value by district, rather than coverage counts alone.

Link plans to funding. SEPCs should match each adopted DEAP to specific Central and State schemes, since DEH has no funding of its own, prioritising district-level logistics, testing labs, packaging centres and shared machinery (The Hindu BusinessLine, 2025).

Formalise the micro and nano base. State governments should formalise micro and nano enterprises through incentives and cluster-based infrastructure, and DEPCs should differentiate strategy by supporting strong exporters to grow while helping small units join supply chains through structured hand-holding or anchor investors (The Hindu BusinessLine, 2025).

Target the missing middle. Planning effort and policy attention should also be concentrated on the 59 missing middle districts, rather than spreading resources evenly across a uniform pan-India template that the study finds will not work (ODOP-DEH Study).

References

Export-Import Bank of India. (2023, September). Evaluating India’s middle export districts: Opportunities under ODOP-DEH. https://www.eximbankindia.in/sites/default/files/2025-07/EvaluatingIndiaMiddle-Export-Districts-OpportunitiesunderODOP-DEH.pdf

Ministry of Commerce and Industry. (2026, September 2). Districts as export hubs: Taking India’s exports to every district. Press Information Bureau. https://static.pib.gov.in/WriteReadData/specificdocs/documents/2026/sep/doc_9769_20260902_11373401.pdf

Policy Edge. (2026, September 2). Districts as export hubs covers 770 districts, but only 249 export plans formally adopted. https://www.policyedge.in/p/districts-as-export-hubs-covers-770-districts-but-only-249-export-plans-formally-adopted

The Economic Times. (2026, September 27). Textiles ministry plans 5,000–10,000 new exporters in 2–3 years. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/cons-products/garments-/-textiles/textiles-ministry-plans-5000-10000-new-exporters-in-2-3-years/articleshow/134525003.cms

The Hindu BusinessLine. (2025, December 12). Transforming districts into export hubs. https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/transforming-districts-into-export-hubs/article70385528.ece

About the Author

Siddhant Koul is a Research and Editorial Intern at IMPRI. He is a second-year B.A. (Hons.) Political Science student at Ramjas College, University of Delhi. An avid reader and close follower of global affairs and public intellectuals like Pratap Bhanu Mehta, he researches India’s energy security and geopolitical risk — having published a data-driven two-part series on India’s energy crisis drawing on Parliamentary records, PPAC data, and IEA market reports..

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute for providing the platform to research and write this policy update article. Special thanks to the editorial board, mentors, and coordinators for their valuable feedback and constructive guidance throughout the drafting process

Reviewed by: Arjya Shree Pande, Madhurita D

Published by: Prisha Sachdeva

Disclaimer: All views expressed in this article belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect the official positions or policies of any affiliated organizations