Odisha is the proverbial land of poverty amidst plenty. No wonder, it continues to suffer the indignity of being ranked the second poorest State of independent India.Nature has liberally blessed the State with vast wealth of arable plain landscape, adequate water sources with widespread riverine network, long docile seacoast, enormous forest wealth with umpteen species of flora and fauna and of course, enviable treasure of minerals of all hues.
But then the State seems to have made terms with poverty even more than six decades after independence. The reasons of such perplexing paradox is, however, not far to seek. Odisha’s nagging problem is mainly due to dearth of doubtable, accomplished and imaginative political leadership with burning passion to take Odisha forward.
Yes, during the first three decades of independence, the State had a flash of good luck to get three Chief Ministers in Dr HK Mahtab, Biju Patnaik and Nandini Satpathy. They certainly had nurtured a dream to somehow drag Odisha out of the whirlpool of poverty. By way of pursuing their dream they made possible with the OTM, TPM, Hirakud Dam, Rourkela Steel Plant, Paradeep Port and Nalco among others.
Besides, mega irrigation projects like Indravati and Rengali also came up in tandem with revolutionary land reform measures. It is pertinent to note that the trio of CMs achieved such memorable feats while the same party ruled both at the State and the Centre.
To Odisha’s ill luck their tenure in office was not only brief but also unstable owing to massive political leg pulling. Sadly enough, they fell prey to the political manoeuvrings. There after decades of political uncertainty and leadership squabbles ensued. CM after CM devoted more time and energy to ensure electoral prospects of their party and secure their seats. They mostly feathered their own nests rather than pushing forward the process of Odisha’s sustained economic growth.
Without meaning slightest offence to the incumbent CM Naveen Patnaik despite his longest ever, unrivalled tenure in the office he has practically squandered away a rare opportunity to build up a prosperous Odisha that he promised the people while patrolling places for votes.
In the opening phase of his unbroken 14 years long regime, the global market of iron-steel suddenly grew abnormally bullish, Odisha being the land of abundant coal and minerals, front line investors from home and abroad rushed to the State and made a beeline for signing MoUs to establish mega mineral industries and power plants.
The new CM being unfamiliar both to the realities of politics and administration apparently became very zealous to usher in an era of industrialization. Without barest minimum efforts to ascertain the inevitable factors of environmental suitability, land acquisition, evacuation and resettlement problems besides the minds of the local people he went on signing scores of MoUs almost on daily basis. This created an unsustainable euphoria of speedy industrialization all around. little did he realize that things are not as plain and simple as he fancied. legal litigations, popular resistance and all sorts of hurdles started surfacing.
In Kalinga Nagar of Jajpur district, no fewer than 14 adivasis of the area fell prey to the police bullet while raging violent protest against evacuation. Efforts for land acquisition in Keonjhar district for Arcellor’s use made no headway over years. Thoroughly fed up with Government’s indolence and inaction, the steel baron Mittal called it a day and left Odisha for good.
The ship of the Vedanta Company wrecked on the mount of Niyamgiri which is worshipped by Dongaria tribes. South Korean steel giant Pohang Company’s much touted Posco steel project in the district of Jagatsinghpur is yet to take off despite six years of waiting and ordeals. Ceaseless popular resistance against land acquisition has proved to be bane of the project. The ultimate fate of Posco is now, “anybody’s guess”. On the whole, the euphoria of industrializing Odisha has come to evaporate.
In the medium industries front the picture is gloomier. OTM (Orissa Textile Mill),TPM (Tritagarh Paper Mill) and a dozen of spinning mills have decided to close down. Chimnies of around 130 sponge iron plants have turned cool and silent. The over silted reservoir of the Hirakud has diminished in its capacity for irrigation and power generation, etc. No thought has been directed towards de-silting of the reservoir.
Not a single additional hectare of land has been brought under flow irrigation during the last 12 years. Hard to believe though capacity production of one extra bit of electricity has not been added by the Government so far. Hirakud, RSP and Rengali dam projects, etc confronted all such problems in those days. The then CMs repeatedly visited the project sites, mixed and interacted with the people and won over the agitators though their persuasive skills and inspiring leadership.
But Naveen Patnaik scrupulously avoided to personally visit to the trouble spots-Kalinga Nagar, Niyamgiri or the proposed Posco sites even once for reasons only know to him. By God’s food grace, Kalinga Nagar is now on the job in full swing. Some medium size steel plants like Arati and Bhushan somehow managed to come up but are struggling for existence.
As it appears Naveen’s regime has since lost all hopes of realizing its industrial development dreams. To divert people’s attention under one pretext or the other, he kept waging an emotionally pitched battles against the Central Government. All this is only politicking and certainly not good politics.
Patnaik, in the meanwhile, has mastered the art of controlling his flock and dishing out freebies among poor to purchase their vote, with one rupee rice, chappals, blankets, sarees, umbrellas, cycles and cheap computer sets. He has managed to create an invincible image among lower strata people and win the polls with their help. Instead of anymore stressing on the development sector he has started concentrating on the so-called labelled ‘welfare schemes’. This change of strategy is intended to be politically paying for him.
But, what about the future of the StateIJ What about stopping procurement of potato, onion, peas, eggs, etc from the neighbouring StatesIJ Will the pang of poverty ease without stress on productionIJ Should he remain content with distribution of freebiesIJ Having largely failed on the industry front, should he go all out at least to save PoscoIJ God alone knows what is there in store for the generation to come!
(The writer, Communications Officer at Humara Bachpan Campaign, is a child rights activist and a current affairs and developmental sector journalist)