It seems a back-to-back shocker for Odisha. Close on the heels of the Socio-Economic and Caste Census rating Odisha high on deprivation index, recently the University of Oxford’s Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) put Odisha as the sixth poorest State in the country.
The details throw more devilish facts to fore. While the index estimated the incidence of poverty at a high of over 63 per cent, it puts the population in acute poverty in Odisha at a high of 34 per cent. The destitute in Odisha are pegged at 35 per cent and the most worrying fact is around 16 per cent of population in Odisha is still vulnerable to poverty, the report pointed out. A worse story is even the inequality among poor is quite high in the State. Odisha with a score of 0.231 is the fourth-most State in country evidencing high inequality even among the poor populace.
The University of Oxford 2015 MPI has computed a score of 0.339 for Odisha in its MPI, thereby placing the State ahead of only Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The MPI has been computed by taking into account over 10 indicators divided into three dimensions such as education, health and standard of living.
While years of schooling and school attendance are the indicators of education dimension, child mortality and nutrition form the components of dimension of health. Electricity, sanitation (open defecation), water, floor, cooking fuel and assets together form the dimension of standard of living. MPI is then calculated by multiplying the incidence of poverty by the average intensity of poverty across the poor. The intensity of poverty among poor in Odisha which measures the deprivation index has been estimated at a high of 53.6 per cent.
Interestingly, poor nutrition leading to child mortality has hurt the State most in the MPI nationally - this despite the State having the populist Re 1-a-kg rice scheme and more recently, the Aahar scheme. This shows the State needs more targeted nutrition interventions than the populist schemes on roll now. It needs more universal targeted nutrition programmes in high impoverished districts like Boudh, Dhenkanal, Gajapati, Kalahandi, Koraput and Malkangiri.
Other multiplier factors for State’s high MPI is large scale open defecation, poor housing conditions and high use of traditional/fossil cooking fuels. Above all, poor income leading to poor assets at hand played the top-up factor in manufacturing high MPI rating for Odisha nationally.
However, the silver lining is school attendance has a miniscule effect on MPI thanks to the Sarva Shiksa Abhiyan (SSA). However, the years of schooling is still a worrying factor for the State owing to large drop-outs at matric level. This alone factored in 15 per cent share in the State’s MPI score.
It needs mentioning that as per the latest poverty estimates released by erstwhile Planning Commission in 2013, Odisha with around 33 per cent people living below poverty line is the fourth-most poorest State in the country led by Chhattisgarh. But the State is 3rd poorest in rural India with over 35 per cent living below poverty line.