The Telegraph - Survey finds Orissa ‘poorest’ in India

The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Nation | Survey finds Orissa ‘poorest’ in India

Survey finds Orissa ‘poorest’ in India - Opp. demands farmers’ loan waiver, study points to slow growth

SUBRAT DAS

BJP activists burn effigy of Manmohan Singh in front of the Assembly to protest against the fuel price hike. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee Bhubaneswar, Feb. 15: Tall claims of “rapid industrial growth” made by the NDA government have fallen flat with the pre-budget economic survey for 2007-08 describing Orissa to be the poorest state in India. “Orissa’s economy is still characterised by incidences of poverty,” states the survey. Quoting the recent estimate stated by the Planning Commission, the survey report states that the percentage of BPL population in Orissa stood at 39.9 per cent, compared to 21.8 per cent at the all-India level. The percentage of BPL population in rural Orissa (39.80) is lower than that in the urban belt (40.30), which is reverse at an all-India level (rural 21.80 and urban-21.70). The state could reduce poverty by 1.5 per cent during 2000-05 despite implementation of poverty alleviation schemes. However, the situation did improve in 2000-05 with a reduction percentage of 7.3. The slow rate of improvement has been attributed to several inherent problems such as vulnerability to repeated natural calamities, a disproportionately large proportion of ST/SC population, a large number of rural communities, want of adequate irrigation facilities and lack of high quality infrastructure. “Realising” that poverty is one of the factors for the backwardness, the Vision-2020 document, prepared by the government, has targeted an ambitious economic growth rate of 9 to 10 per cent by 2020. Attempts have been made in the document to target poverty reduction by promoting broad-based industrial growth. Orissa’s economy achieved an average annual rate of 7.26 per cent in the first four years of the 10th Plan primarily due to a high growth rate of 11.34 per cent in the industrial and mineral sectors. More than 45 steel companies, including Posco and ArcelorMittal, three aluminium giants and 13 power entities have signed MoUs with the state so far to set up plants in here. Despite the industrialisation drive and implementation of a number of employment generation programmes by the Centre and the state, the number of unemployed youths has been on the rise. During 2006, about 2.41 lakh job seekers registered themselves in employment exchanges. Only 586 placements were made against the 2,103 vacancies notified, read the survey report.