Parliament Question: District Export Hubs Scheme

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION No. 3758 ANSWERED ON 11/08/2026 DISTRICT EXPORT HUBS SCHEME 3758. SHRI ARUN BHARTI SHRI RAJESH VERMA SMT. SHAMBHAVI DR. LATA WANKHEDE ¼okf.kT; ,oa m|ksx e=a h½ Will the Minister of COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY be pleased to state: (a) the selection and operational status of districts chosen under the Districts as Export Hubs scheme during the financial year 2025-2026 in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh; (b) the details of the specific action plans drafted by the District Export Promotion Committees to bridge infrastructural gaps in the chosen districts of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh during the last one year; (c) the total central funds released for creating common facility centres, testing laboratories and cold storage chains in these export-oriented districts of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh; (d) whether the Ministry has noted a lack of direct institutional credit and trade finance for small-scale exporters operating from interior districts of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh; and (e) the remedial measures being taken by the Government, in coordination with the state authorities, to boost logistics and connectivity for Bihar and Madhya Pradesh-based exporters? ANSWER okf.kT; ,oa m|ksx ea=ky; esa jkT;ea=h ¼Jh ftfru izlkn½ THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY (SHRI JITIN PRASADA) (a) to (b) The Districts as Export Hubs (DEH) initiative of the Department of Commerce, implemented through the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), seeks to decentralise export promotion by making every district an active stakeholder in the country’s export growth. The DEH initiative is a pan-India initiative where all districts across the country are targeted to promote export participation. Under this initiative products and services with export potential have been identified across all districts, including districts of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. The Draft District Export Action Plans (DEAPs) have been prepared and adopted, in consultation with district-level stakeholders, for 38 districts of Bihar and in 52 of 55 1districts of Madhya Pradesh, and are periodically reviewed by the respective District Export Promotion Committees (DEPCs) to align with evolving global demand and district-specific production strengths. The Districts as Export Hubs initiative is a collaborative and facilitative framework that aims to address export bottlenecks identified at the grassroots. Within this framework, the DEPCs prepare the DEAPs, which assess the production and cluster strengths of the district, identify gaps relating to aggregation, quality and certification, testing, packaging, warehousing, logistics connectivity and buyer linkages, and set out corresponding action points and implementing agencies. The primary focus of DEAPs is on export related bottlenecks such as exporter capacity development, skill upgradation, bridging information asymmetries, providing market intelligence and others beyond directly targeting infrastructure development. (c) to (e) The Districts as Export Hubs initiative operates through convergence of existing schemes. The DEH framework is a facilitative approach to bring Central Ministries/Departments, State Governments, District Administrations and district-level stakeholders onto a common platform through the DEPC and leverage ongoing schemes of the Central and State Governments — including the financial assistance available thereunder and by promoting convergence among them. To strengthen access to trade finance and export credit for small and first-time exporters, including those located in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, the Government is undertaking a focused, outcome-oriented implementation of DEH. Through this implementation, financial institutions and agencies including ECGC, EXIM Bank, SIDBI, NCGTC and NABARD, along with India Post, have been onboarded to facilitate access to export finance at the grassroots, and further the Lead Bank nodal officers at the district level have been engaged to facilitate access to export credit. Further, the government has launched the Export Promotion Mission (EPM) on 12th November 2025, with a total outlay of ₹25,060 crore for the period FY 2025-26 to FY 2030-31, to strengthen India’s export competitiveness with a focused emphasis on MSMEs, first-time exporters, labour-intensive sectors and exporters from interior and low-export-intensity regions. The Mission operates through two integrated sub- schemes — Niryat Protsahan, focused on improving access to affordable trade finance through instruments such as interest subvention, collateral support for export credit, export factoring, credit guarantee for e-commerce exporters and support for alternative trade instruments; and Niryat Disha, focused on other trade enablers such as export quality and compliance support, international branding and packaging, market access, export logistics and warehousing, and trade intelligence. The Niryat Disha sub-schemes address structural logistics constraints faced by hinterland exporters. The Logistics Interventions for Freight & Transport scheme provides support towards offsetting inefficiencies in inland connectivity affecting remote and hinterland regions, thereby reducing the freight and logistics costs arising from locational disadvantages, while the Facilitating Logistics, Overseas Warehousing & Fulfilment scheme supports access to overseas logistics, warehousing and fulfilment arrangements to improve delivery efficiency in foreign markets. ***** 2