It’s a big shocker for Odisha as people of the State stand poorest among 18 States, including Assam, in the country.
The double whammy is during the two decades of 1991 - 2012 when the country got richer, Odisha turned poorer as average value of assets people have then contracted vis-a-vis the share in the national average value.
This startling revelation was made by the recently released results on household assets by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) that puts a question mark on Odisha’s growth story.
In rural Odisha, the average value of assets people have here has been estimated by NSSO at Rs2.81 lakh (2012 value) — which is lowest in the country. On the contrary, people in rural Assam have average value of assets that is nearly twice the value at Rs5 lakh.
It’s not in the rural realm alone, with people having an average value of assets totalling to Rs7.9 lakh, urban Odisha finished the poorest. Significantly, in a State like Assam, the average values of assets people have in urban areas were higher at Rs28.5 lakh — nearly 4-times bigger.
What is of concern is the ratio of Odisha’s average value of assets to the national average value of assets posted a continuous decline in rural areas since 1991, but in urban areas after posting a rise in 2002, it dipped again in 2012 faring below the 1991 value. From 0.48 in 1991, the value is 0.38 in 2012. Interestingly, urban Assam and Chhattisgarh have posted a significant rise comparatively - which means average values of assets people have in urban Assam and Chhattisgarh have grown during the period 2002-2012 thereby taking an increased share in the national average value.
Significantly, the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of the State - both at current prices and constant prices - has contracted between 1991-92 and 2014-15.
Sample this. The annual growth rate of GSDP at current prices was 26.17 per cent in 1991-92, but the growth rate was only around 14 per cent in 2014-15. Similarly, the real growth of GSDP in 1991-92 was around 10 per cent against mere 8 per cent in 2014-15. This shows the real growth of the State’s economy and the nominal growth (which includes the inflation) has been slower now than two decades back. The result: Average prosperity value of people dipped with a fewer assets owned and the growth accumulating in few hands leading to inequitable growth.
NSS results give a thumb up to this as the Gini’s coefficient for rural Odisha is around 0.5 and around 0.7 for urban Odisha. This value measures the inequality of wealth distribution in an economy. A value nearer to 1 denotes to complete inequality and nearer to zero means wealth distribution is perfect. Accordingly, inequality (rich-poor gap) reeks higher in urban Odisha than rural Odisha. Interestingly, Jharkhand, where people in urban areas have assets whose average values were higher at Rs9.7 lakh against Rs7.9lakh in urban Odisha, with a lower Gini value display better equitability.