I have had the opportunity to interact with Biju Patnaik at the Economic Editors’ Conferences in Delhi when he was the Minister of Steel and Mines in the Janata government 1977-79. He conceived ambitious plans for the expansion of the mining and steel sectors. With his grasp on the issues involved, there was the promise of a faster growth of these sectors.
During 1994 I met him in Bhubaneswar as the Chief Minister of Odisha. He readily agreed to my offer to visit various projects in Odisha for producing a special issue on the state’s economy. The rich facilities provided by him enabled our associate editor and myself to spend four weeks visiting several projects spread across the state and also interact with dozens of business leaders and bureaucrats. I topped up the visits by a detailed two-hour interview with the chief minister.
I started my interview: “Biju babu, thanks for the excellent opportunity provided to travel through the length and breadth of Odisha. Pardon me for this impudence: Odisha is so rich in terms of natural resources. You have plenty of iron ore, bauxite, coal and even diamond and copious of water thanks to Mahanadi. It should require great efforts to keep this state so poor! How was it done?”
The baronial Biju Babu heartily laughed and pointed to a third of the population of Odisha consisting of tribals with poor access to education and jobs. With confidence he was confident of a spectacular transformation in quick time.
His son, Naveen Patnaik, the longest-serving chief minister in the country, for over two decades, is working hard to realise the dream of his illustrious father. The best tribute for his work is the record of his party getting re-elected five times in a row. Our specialist writer, Sahaana Sankar, with her global experience, especially of the US and Europe, has looked closely at the rapid transformation of this state to describe the spectacular transformation.
Odisha, formed in 1936, is the 8th largest state by area and the 11th largest by population with 4.68 crore people. Odisha is the 16th-largest state economy in India with Rs 5.33 lakh crore (US$75 billion) in gross domestic product and a per capita GDP of Rs 116,614 (US$1600).
Odisha has abundant natural resources and has emerged a preferred destination for investors. It contains a fifth of India’s coal, a quarter of its iron ore, a third of its bauxite reserves and most of the chromite.
The state attracts investments in aluminium, steel, coal and coal-based power plants, petrochemicals and information technology. In power generation, Reliance Power has put up a pit head thermal power plant with an investment of US$13 billion at Hirma in Jharsuguda district.
Odisha’s share was 12.6 per cent in total investment in the country. It received investment proposals worth Rs 200,846 crore during 2020. Steel and power were among the sectors which attracted maximum investments in the state.
Odisha has a coastline of 485 kilometre.
– S VISWANATHAN
