No bull-run apparently for Odisha economy in 2015-16 as the State’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) at current prices grew the slowest among major States for the fiscal year ended on March 31, 2016.
By clocking a value of around Rs 3.32 lakh crore, the GSDP at current prices in 2015-16 posted only a mere over 7 per cent growth vis-a-vis 2014-15 when neighbouring States like Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand recorded a bullish growth rate of over 13-14 per cent. Bihar, too, displayed a sturdy GSDP growth of 8 per cent and Uttar Pradesh grew at a still higher rate of 10.5 per cent.
Significantly, Odisha’s growth rate is also far below the national GSDP growth rate of around 8.7 per cent at current prices.
Such a revelation has come to fore by a recent Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) release. And data with the CSO also showed that the average growth of the Gross GSDP) of Odisha for the period 2009- 10 to 2013-14 and 2010-11 to 2014-15 was around 4.42 per cent and 5.13 per cent, respectively, which also were the lowest among 16 States, including Assam.
What makes this sluggish rate of growth saga a bit bothering for the Odisha Government is that private investments flock into an economy that grows only robustly. This appears quite significant when Odisha is making a big pitch to woo private investment via the ‘Make in Odisha’ conclave beginning on November 30. This is a wakeup notice for the State to ramp up economic activities to stay in competition.
Why the State’s economy grew the slowestIJ Sample this: Though the plunging contribution of the farm sector to the State GSDP dropped further to below 14 per cent in 2015-16 from around 19 per cent in 2009-10, industry and services sectors that now together have a contribution of over 80 per cent to the GSDP could post an average growth rate of around 3 per cent and over 7 per cent, respectively, during the same period. Whereas the farm could post only an average real growth rate of below 2 per cent for the period of 2009-10 to 2015-16, courtesy the big drought last year and floods, cyclones in 2011 and 2013.
The underlying fact here is that a meagre growth in the industrial sector failed to deliver the necessary growth momentum to the services sector, and when sectors that together contribute nearly 80 per cent of State’s GSDP grew at a slower rate, the result naturally get reflected in the GSDP growth rate.
The side-effect: Per capita income and rural-urban disparity was affected critically as when over three-fourths of population depend on a sector that could contribute only around 15 per cent to the GSDP whereas the sector that sustained merely one-fourth of the State’s population grew slower to give any push-on effect.