In his Independence Day speech, the Prime Minister has reiterated his Government’s emphasis on catalysing the development process in the eastern States.
The Eastern State of Odisha has remained a fence sitter in the development benefits over the last six decades. At the same time, the State has also remained a victim of the infamous vicious cycle of poverty.
Now, with the release of the latest socio economic census, the State represents a gloomy picture. It is indicative of the continuation of perpetual backwardness and dominance of chronic poverty despite large scale investments in industrial sector in the post liberalised phase.
The two indicators such as the landless households and the un-irrigated land where a large section of the population depend on the cultivation for their livelihood, point to the existing agrarian distress and immediate relooking at the agriculture policy. In addition, the vulnerability of the manual casual labour has remained at a very high level, without any strong and viable alternative employment avenues.
The Raghuram Rajan Committee report-2013 also points to many crucial parameters on which Odisha lags behind. With almost 78 per cent of households without having any access to sanitation facility and a mere 22.4 per cent households with drinking water within premises makes a strong case for an immediate attention from both the Governments. The other indicator is electricity on which the State claims to be a pioneer of ushering major reforms but the data indicate to a dismal state of affairs in contrast to other high performing States like Himachal Pradesh etc.
In recent times, financial inclusion retains a powerful key for uplifting the poor from the poverty trap and unleashing development chain reactions. The state of affairs on this front in Odisha also remains comparatively low (Households with access to banking services is limited to only 45 per cent) in contrast to other States in India.
Odisha needs to be more proactive in terms of broad basing financial inclusion.
Along with the Prime Minister’s emphasis, the recent initiative of the NITI Aayog with an aim of enhancing the efficiency of the States also holds the key for augmenting development benefits to the eastern States. It is pertinent to find recent NITI Aayog’s NIYATAM (NITI initiative to yield aspirational targets and actionable means) initiative, which will work with States to rationalize the number of schemes funded at both Central and State levels, assumes importance in the present context of discussion.
The plan to collect data on a set of development indicators, as being plan, should start with Odisha as priority. Odisha and NITI Aayog should also work closely on recent move of the Aayog of working on the district planning and building by examining the baseline indicators and strength-weakness of each district, while designing new schemes and programmes.
looking at serious development problem in States like Odisha, the Government must include Odisha in its roll out plan in the first phase of implementation that includes establishing a result framework document at the block level.
The debate also argues for the urgency in prioritizing the development issues in the agenda of both the Central and the State Governments.
Moreover, an innovative and creative way of handholding between high performing States and the States which have been lagging behind may be ensured within the framework of strong cooperative federalism.
(The writers are International Development practitioners and visiting Faculty, IIM, Indore respectively. The views expressed are personal)