An Ode to Odisha
Piped water to all households in Puri. Odisha-sponsored Indian hockey team (men) winning Olympic bronze and women coming fourth. Home to an ancient and diverse culture. Mineral-rich landmass. Sound record in tackling natural disasters. These are few things that have kept Odisha in the news in recent months. This piece deep dives into Odisha’s successful growth story.
The Name Odisha evokes images of the famous Konark sun temple, exploits of the Kalinga kings, rich maritime history and a hoary heritage of music and dance. Of all the coastal states in India, the state had maritime trade and cultural links with Myanmar, the Malay Peninsula, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and China. Odisha introduced the Hindu way of life to Java in Indonesia and later, Buddhism to many parts of Asia including Sri Lanka.
For long, the plight of Odisha was similar to many Indian states; abject poverty, subsistence level agriculture, frequent devastation due to natural calamities, poor infrastructure and industrial development. Dramatic changes were triggered first with the rule of Biju Patnaik in the 1990s and later, on his demise, with his son, Naveen Patnaik. The former was a colourful and renowned leader of the Independence movement with versatile capabilities including that of a pilot. He famously airlifted the Sjahrir, then Prime Minister of Indonesia and Vice President Hatta from Java to Singapore when the Dutch invaded Indonesia in 1947. The once reluctant inheritor of his father’s position, Naveen Patnaik was elected to power for a historic fifth time in 2019. He is known to be calm and composed with a spartan lifestyle but decisive and effective. Having lived outside his home state prior to becoming the chief minister, his exposure to the state’s art, literature, culture, sports, economics and politics was limited. Several schemes of his in the early days, including the offer of a kg of rice for a rupee and the corruption-free record of administration have kept Naveen Patnaik on top of the popularity charts.
Spectacular performance…
In 2004-05, the state’s per capita income was just INR 6487 (1993-94 prices). Nearly half of the country’s INR 12416. The state was never considered industrialised. It had only a few large steel and aluminum plants and manufacturing units mainly in the public sector despite its rich reserves of minerals like iron ore, bauxite and coal. The state was largely agrarian with almost a non-existent services sector and a poor infrastructure.
Naveen Patnaik had a huge task before him, to make agriculture sustainable, improve infrastructure, make education and basic services accessible to the poor, invite industrialists to invest in the state, hard sell the state to tap its tourism and improve the standard of living of its people. He has succeeded remarkably well; per capita income of Odisha in 2019-20 was INR 101,587 (2011-12 prices) while that of India was INR 94,566. The industry sector contributes 39.6 per cent to the economy in terms of gross value addition. The vast coastline with Paradip and Damra Ports offer Odisha precious maritime strengths. The power sector has seen significant improvements in the last 10 years with positive outcomes from the ‘Electricity to All’ initiative – 99.64 per cent of the villages are electrified as on March 2019 against just 60 per cent ten years ago.
Road infrastructure was created linking mineral-rich districts to the twin-cities of Cuttack and Bhubaneshwar and also to the port. Odisha has been attracting investments beyond traditional steel and aluminium. Manufacturers of electronic components, aerospace, IT and food processing are attracted to the state owing to its optimal cost and seamless and transparent approval mechanism. To foster entrepreneurship, a Start-Up policy has been introduced with monetary benefits up to Rs 5 crore for startups and incubators. The Odisha Youth Innovation Fund targets rural youth with novel ideas with funding support to fructify their dreams.
Socio-Economic Factors – Education and Gender
In regard to Human Development Index (HDI) the state remains at the bottom 6 of the country with an Index of 6.06 (up from 4.00 in the early 1990s). Over the last decade, the literacy rate has increased to 72.9 per cent (national literacy rate 72.99 per cent) from 63 per cent a decade ago. Better school and community infrastructure, mid-day meals, free bicycle for Grade 10 girls… have contributed to rise in literacy rates but dropouts in middle and primary school still remain high. Various schemes to improve teaching quality, learning outcomes and to reduce dropouts of migrants and tribal communities are in place but it does take consistent implementation and evaluation to bring about long term changes in learning related outcomes. To keep up with gender equality, the government has launched special skill training in information technology for girls and women; launched the Nano-Unicorn Scheme for women entrepreneurs who require just Rs 1 lakh to set up an enterprise. Similar to states like Tamil Nadu, the self-help group movement has been nurtured in Odisha too, providing rural women with economic opportunities to uplift themselves and the communities. Odisha seems to be on the right path.
Model for Universal Basic Income Policy
Odisha has a large mass of cultivable land. Owing to frequent and disruptive extreme weather events, agricultural output is not stable and farmers have erratic crop yields and incomes. The state scheme Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) and the PM’s Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme had covered around 43.65 lakh farm households (92 per cent of the state’s farmers/landless agricultural labourers). This scheme supports small and marginal farmers in both cropping seasons with Rs 10,000 per family and landless agricultural households Rs 12,500 for taking up alternative livelihoods. Further, farmers are given interest free crop loans up to Rs 50,000 along with life insurance.
Odisha has shown the way for the first Universal Basic Income programme for India.
The first state to herald piped water to households in a city
The Jal Jeevan mission 2019 launched by Government of India aimed to provide 191 million households with piped water. Ground water is a scarce resource in Odisha; massive extraction has been leading to ingress of seawater. Since 2017, Odisha’s Har Ghar Jhal initiative had the aim of providing all homes with piped-drinking water. In July 2021, Puri became the first city in India to have 100 per cent tap water connections that were safe for drinking and cooking. The plan was drawn and implemented after studying the system in Singapore. Puri receives water from the River Bhargavi, processed through a filtration system at a centralised treatment plant. The processed water passes quality standards after which it is stored in overhead tanks that are connected to pipes. The urban development department in parallel ensured pipe connectivity to all households. The investment for the pipeline was just Rs 13 crore and surplus water was allowed to seep into the ground. This would come in handy during droughts when groundwater would be the source and not the river.
By 2023, 17 cities are to be equipped with similar infrastructure. Puri, being a small city, could springboard to success quickly. Larger towns such as Bhubaneshwar would have additional challenges owing to more connections and longer distances. Nevertheless, Odisha has set the ball rolling and look forward to replication in the rest of the state and country too!
Tackling Natural disasters – an enviable record
Odisha is considered an epicenter of natural disasters. The state witnesses a vicious cycle of drought, cyclone, incessant rain and heatwaves through the year. Human induced reasons such as heavy deforestation, especially of the dense mangrove forests and a high degree of mining and industrialisation have led to the deterioration of soil quality, increase in droughts and floods, altering the natural climate of the state. The state has evolved effective disaster mitigation strategies to adapt to nature’s fury. After Naveen Patnaik became the CM in 2000, Odisha has created a robust model for disaster preparedness and response. Odisha houses 450 specially built multipurpose cyclone shelters on stilts across its coastline and a robust community outreach system with youth to not only communicate messages but also administer first aid and support to affected people. The state has also set up 20 units of Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) that comprise trained personnel with multi-disaster tackling capabilities and equipment. Loss of lives, due to natural calamity, has drastically reduced with these strategies with almost zero deaths in the recent past. Protecting infrastructure including electricity and telephone lines, remains a major challenge with disasters leaving the state without connectivity for days.
Sporting legacy
Naveen Patnaik has been changing the dynamics of sport in India through his famous Rs 100 crore sponsorship to Hockey India for nurturing men’s and women’s hockey for 5 years (since 2018). Himself hockey player and enthusiast, Naveen Patnaik’s vision was to ensure that the sport reaches its pinnacle with not only coaching but also state of the art infrastructure and holistic support to the teams. Odisha has built several multi-sport stadiums and the Kalinga Stadium complex boasts astro-turf with special schemes for strengthening and conditioning, physiology testing, injury prevention and management. Odisha hosted the first ever Khelo India University Games which witnessed 4000 athletes in action drawn from across the nation. The men’s hockey team bagging a bronze after 4 decades at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and the women team coming fourth are indebted to the support from Odisha state. Odisha will host the 2023 World Hockey Cup for which an international hockey stadium is coming up at Rourkela, Odisha is surely putting India on the world map for hockey. Other states in India could follow suit and can create a sporting ecosystem for each of the other sports.
Odisha has been setting-up milestones and has been in the news for all the right reasons. Expanding the best practices and learning from other states to augment existing policies could further accelerate Odisha’s growth.
By Sahaana Sankar
