When Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a recent election address in UP described Odisha as the poorest State, much brouhaha was stirred up by the ruling BJD and opposition Congress labelling it as an insult of Odisha, but the stinging fact is Odisha is, indeed, the poorest State in the country now as the latest new ranking of States done by the Centre on the basis of the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 reveals.
The latest ranking based on SECC-2011 shows that it’s no more Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, but the new narrative of poverty-hit States are represented by Odisha and Chhattisgarh. Significantly, both the neighbours figure in the top in the country with a whopping 81.2 per cent (Odisha) and 81.9 per cent (Chhattisgarh) people, respectively, here living with highest deprivation, including people living in acute poverty.
However, in the indicator of acute poverty, Chhattisgarh comes second in the country with nearly 2.4-per cent households in the bracket and Odisha follows it with around 1.4 per cent. But Odisha tops the country with households having maximum deprivation. Even, north-eastern States have a better ranking than Odisha.
In comparison, nationally, a mere 0.89 per cent households were assigned as the people living in acute poverty and a mere 48-per cent households live with maximum deprivation. While Uttar Pradesh has around 52 per cent of households living in maximum deprivation, it’s over 72 per cent in Bihar. This comes as a reality check for the powers-that-be in the State to ponder over.
Why this ranking is more significant than the so-called BPl list that caps the level at a hypothetical notion is that the Prime Minister has asked all Union Ministries to provision all Central schemes like PMAY - G, Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti and Ujjwala Yojana for the poor beneficiaries on this SECC-2011 ranking.
Significantly, prevalence of widespread deprivation in Chhattisgarh has been attributed to the highest tribal population in proportion to total households. Chhattisgarh has a whopping of over 38 per cent of total as tribal households compared to around 26 per cent in Odisha and about 28 per cent in Madhya Pradesh. But MP has only around 70 per cent households living with maximum deprivation, including people in acute poverty.
Moreover, Odisha’s poor show nationally in poverty index owes to the existence of high deprivation among ST, SC and OBC alike, which is not the case in other States like UP, Bihar, MP, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh, reveals the SECC data. The inference then is income generation activities among the marginalised sections in Odisha has been a laggard vis-a-vis other poorer States nationally.
The collateral political damage, however, then would be on the ruling party as evidenced in the latest round of Assembly elections because Modi has started recalibration of all Centrally-sponsored schemes by plugging leakage and channelling so towards the marginalised sections for augmenting their income.