In mid 80s, in his report to the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, noted economist Ashish Bose identified Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh as the poorest States of India, giving them an acronym BIMARU States.
According to the Reserve Bank of India report of 2013, the national average of poverty was 21.92 per cent of population. Bihar has the highest 40.69 per cent of poor population and Odisha has 32.59 per cent of poor population .Other high incidence poverty States are Chhattisgarh ( 39.93), Jharkhand( 36.96),Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh , Assam etc. There was fall of poverty in all States between 1993-94 and 2004-05.
Odisha, one of the BIMARU States, has been witnessing, what economist John Kenneth Galbraith calls, mass poverty, since colonial days. In 1866, Odisha was struck by a massive famine, locally called as “Na Anka Durvikhya” where nearly one million people died due to drought , no food stock and neglect of British officials to supply relief. After independence, agriculture was given priority through creation of dams and irrigation projects, implementation of Green Revolution, paddy procurement by Government and disbursement of subsidised agri-input. But the issues of poverty and starvation continued to hunt Odisha.
There were reports of thousand starvation deaths in south Odisha during 1965-66. The report of child sale due to poverty in Kalahandi, brought the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to Odisha in the year 1984. The Government of India lunched a special scheme in 1990s, called KBK (Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput), which was identified as hunger and poverty zone of Odisha. In 2004-05, the poverty percentage was 57.2.
According to Odisha Economic Survey 2014-15, poverty in the State has declined by 24.6 per cent from 57.2 per cent in 2004-05 to 32.6 per cent in 2011-12 as per Tendulkar Committee methodology. Now the Government says that Odisha has 28 per cent poor population. However, it is difficult to accept this low figure of poverty as the proxy indicators of poverty like distressed migration, farmers’ suicide, dependency on food and employment security schemes are telling a contrasting story.
The State Government has selected the beneficiary using auto inclusion and auto-exclusion criteria for the National Food Security Act (NFSA). The auto-exclusion criteria are almost similar to the deprivation- criteria used by caste-census of 2011. These criteria can safely choose the poor people without measuring them with poverty line tool.
Though the mandate of the NFSA was to respond to the people facing food-insecurity and not the poor, but the inclusion-exclusion criteria of State Government for NFSA can well substitute the poverty line criterion. These criteria can be used as proxy indicator of poverty. Out of 4.2 crore Odisha population, 31,923,961(say 3.2crore) people have been selected to have ration cards and they should be treated as poor.
Interestingly, Ganjam has the highest number of beneficiaries which indicates highest number of poor people of the State living in the district. This is also corroborated with high distressed migration from the district. In contrast to the traditional KBK- region of poverty, coastal districts of Ganjam, Baleswar, Cuttack, Jajpur and Khorda are figuring in the top ten lists of hungry people, needing subsidised food. Therefore, we can infer that these coastal districts have become new centers of poverty.
Unemployment is considered as another proxy indicator of poverty. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNRES) gives employment to the unemployed rural persons above 18 years of age. It is known that wage-labourers apply for this scheme and the scheme does not attract the better-off rural families or land lords.
The 45.23 lakhs beneficiaries of MGNREGS of Odisha can be treated as adult poor people. What percentage do they constitute of rural Odisha populationIJ As per the 2011 census, the rural population of Odisha is approx 3.5 crore. The age structure of the population consists of 30 per cent of 0-14 age population, 62 per cent of 15-59 age group population and 8 per cent of 60 plus population. Though 60 plus population is unable to do hard work and do not usually join MNERGA activities. So the MNERGA beneficiary population can be bracketed as 18-59 age group population. Considering, the 0-18 population as 40 per cent and 60 plus population as 8 per cent, the eligible 18-59 age group rural population for MNERGA is 52 per cent. 1.82 crore is 52 per cent of rural population . So the 45.23 lakh rural active workers under the scheme constitute 25 per cent of rural 18-59 age group population. Thus the total rural 18 plus poor population is 25 per cent MNERGs population plus 8 per cent of 60 plus population, thus making a total of 33 per cent rural population.
Ganjam district, which stood first in food security act beneficiary size, stands second here again in terms of highest number of active workers. This indicates Ganjam has highest number of poor people in the State in spite of the Chief Minister and a couple of other Ministers hailing from the district. The data also breaks the traditional KBK-regional theory of poverty and speaks of distribution of poverty to all regions of Odisha.
The causes of poverty in Odisha have no more remained the same as that of 1866-famine times. It shows clearly that the development model that the successive State Governments have been adopting, is exclusion -oriented, throwing out people round the year to the sea of poverty. There is economic growth in the State with diversification of sectors for employment of people but there is always certain group of people falling down the economic ladder while climbing up. The State Government is providing welfare basket to support the poor sections but the structural causes of poverty like land reforms, agri-business, drought and flood protected crop-regime promotion, skill development of youth and small business promotion are not taking place. There is no pride of the Government in keeping the size of the poor small in the State with statistical manipulation but there is statesmanship in assessing poverty in each five years, admitting its size, understanding the dynamics of micro-economy and effecting micro-structural re-engineering to mitigate poverty. No Government can be proved efficient unless it eliminates poverty from State.