Despite the claims by the State Government of accelerated economic growth, Odisha has joined the ranks of BIMARU States, Jammu and Kashmir and Assam with low income and high incidence of economic inequity.
According to a the latest study by the Assocham on comparative performances by the States, Odisha is poor in six of the nine indicators chosen to rank the best performing States in the country. Interestingly, Bihar ranked as best performing State in four of the nine indicators.
The biggest surprise for the State is Assocham ranked Odisha among worst performing States in removing inequality, when the State Government has doled out a host of populist pro-poor schemes.
But the shocker is Uttar Pradesh and Bihar ranked higher than Odisha in ensuring health for its people. Most significantly, Odisha didn’t figure even among the best performing States in the indicator of industrial development. Assocham study has ranked Madhya Pradesh, UP and Rajasthan high in the list of industrial development led by Gujarat.
Sample the failures: As the study has taken up the indicator of per capita income and its average growth for the period 2009 — 2011 to 2012 — 2014, a look at the data shows that Odisha races ahead of only UP, Bihar and MP in absolute value in the country.
However, in terms of annual growth rate of per capita income, Odisha fared poorer than Bihar, UP and MP. Odisha’s per capita income recorded an average annual growth rate of around 11 per cent during 2009-14.
MP and Bihar recorded growth of over 16 per cent and UP recorded 13 per cent. Besides, in monthly per capita expenditure indices (which is a direct measurement of per capita income at the individual level especially for poorer and lower middle class), Odisha figured nationally at the bottom in the rural level successively.
In the urban centres, it figured just ahead of Bihar. Significantly, the high-level of inequity is measured by the fact of rural Odisha’s monthly per capita expenditure being 102 per cent less than its urban counterpart — the highest such variation in the country.
For this, Odisha has been categorised with having high economic inequity in the country. Regarding the per capita expenditure in elementary education under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, Odisha with Rs462 lags behind Bihar with Rs537.
Odisha rated poorer than UP and Bihar in ensuring health to people based on the indices of infant mortality rate (IMR), health infrastructure and Government expenditure on health.
Health infra is mainly divided into education and service infra. Odisha fared better than Bihar and UP in rural health hospitals and manpower. But in health education infra, Odisha lagged behind UP in admission capacity of medical colleges and hospitals (MCH) and number of beds attached to the hospitals. It is seen that the proportion of admission capacity to beds attached in Odisha is around 1:5 against 1:9 in UP.
Odisha also has higher IMR than Bihar and UP. Government expenditure on health in Odisha is around 3.7 per cent against 5 per cent in UP. However, Assocham rated Odisha best performing State in the indices of roads and power.