BHUBANESWAR: With elections round the corner, the focus seems to be shifting to the performance of the incumbent Government.
When the BJD-BJP coalition led by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was voted to power in 2000, the challenges were to check the downslide in economy, reduce poverty and creating employment.
The Government began disastrously with GSDP (gross state domestic product) contracting to a negative 0.75 per cent in 2000-01 against a 5.4 per cent growth in 1999-00. Battered by the devastating cyclone, agriculture and allied services fell to negative 10 per cent in 1999-00, and it contracted further by a negative six per cent in 2000-01. The manufacturing sector slipped by negative 11 per cent pulling down the growth rate of the secondary sector to a negative nine per cent from 15 per cent in 1999-00.
The turn around was achieved only in 2001-02 when the agriculture and allied services grew by 17 per cent and the secondary sector went up by two per cent only. The GSDP had a 7.5 per cent growth.
In 2002, the State again witnessed a severe drought crashing the agriculture and allied services growth rate to a negative 17 per cent. The manufacturing sector, however, kept its momentum by clocking a 15 per cent growth while tertiary sector grew by seven per cent.
In 2003-04, the agriculture and allied sector grew by 23 per cent on a low base of the previous year and in 2004-05, it grew by six per cent, three and two per cent in 2005-06 and 2006-07 respectively.
Orissa had not witnessed any major calamity in these years.
Resultantly, the GSDP grew at a rate of 15, 13, six and nine per cent respectively from 2003-04 to 2006-07 taking the average growth rate of the 10th Plan period to a high of 8.6 per cent.
The growth story, however, failed to impact the poverty graph significantly. Despite an eight per cent improvement, the new poverty estimates in 2004-05 has rated Orissa the poorest with a 39 per cent BPL population.
A recent World Bank report revealed that the per capita expenditure of the population rose by 4.6 per cent per annum from 1999-00 to 2004-05 and the per capita income in the coastal region increased by 12 per cent, northern region by six per cent and southern region by 12 per cent.
Further, it says that rise in people’s spending power is noticed in the households engaged in mining, financial, social and personal services. It says the agriculture wages growth rate that was zero in the late 90’s has only crawled up.
So, when high growth has been the Government’s asset, the failure to pep up tribal and agriculture economies has been its liability resulting in persisting social inequity.
