Nearly half of the rural households in Odisha are eligible for only unskilled work and an additional one-sixth are eligible for post of peons only.
Only around 16 in every 100 rural households have the requisite eligibility at least for clerical/skilled job in Odisha. The future looks more tense as when average expenditure incurred by a student pursuing primary education in rural Odisha in the academic season of 2013 -14 totals to Rs 1,797 (as per NSSO), the frightening truth is a whopping 88.88 per cent of the rural households in the State earn below Rs 5,000 as per the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 released in New Delhi on Friday.
According to SECC – 2011, only 2.8 per cent rural households in State have studied any graduation course. On the contrary, only 3.6 per cent households have attained education level up to higher secondary and another 9 per cent have passed the matric level education. Since at least matric-level pass-out is an essential eligibility for clerical/skilled job, around 16 per cent in rural Odisha are eligible for such posts. SECC – 2011 reveals that when 14 per cent have studied up to middle level, around one-fifth has an educational level of below primary level and a whopping 35 per cent are illiterate.
The SECC – 2011also brings to fore more home-truths about Odisha as a whole. First, Odisha is still more of rural even among the BIMARU (Bihar, MP, Rajasthan and UP) States except Bihar. High density of rural households – around 8.7 in every 10 households – in Odisha saw it being clubbed with States/UTs like lakshwadeep, Bihar, Assam, Himachal Pradesh and Meghalaya. The state of distress becomes conspicuous when over 6 in every 1,000 households in rural Odisha derive their main source of income from alms/begging and the bitter fact is Odisha is 3rd overall nationally – a characteristic not displayed even by the BIMARU States. It reveals poor self-employment scenario in non-agro sector in rural Odisha as around 2 per 100 derive their main income from their own non-agro enterprise. The casualisation of the rural economy becomes widely evident as a whopping 59 per cent derive their main income from wages earned on casual labour works including farm-related. Cultivation is no more dominant income in rural Odisha as only 23.07 per cent owe their sustenance to it. Among BIMARU States, only Bihar is below Odisha in this indicator. Underlying fact also is this is the reason why both States have high migrant workers base.
The big takeaways the SECC – 2011 has for Odisha is given the prevailing poor socio-economic scenario in rural Odisha, improving the employability level of rural households would be a biggest challenge before the State Government as the present education and economic policies have not yielded any significant improvement either in economic conditions or educational standards that are interlinked in nature. Though 17 per cent are eligible for salaried jobs in rural Odisha, only 7 per cent could make the cut, finds the census. The Government is still a major job provider with private sector being a close second in rural Odisha.