BHUBANESWAR: In a big embarrassment for the Odisha government, the State has been ranked among the bottom four states in terms of people with lowest access to basic needs in the Economic Survey 2020-21 tabled in the Parliament on Friday.
Introduced for the first time, the Bare Necessities Index (BNI), both at the rural and urban level, gauged the progress on the quality of services covering 26 indicators on five dimensions - water, sanitation, housing, micro-environment and other facilities, including fuel used for cooking. While access to bare necessities in 2018 was the highest in Kerala, Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat as compared to 2012, it was the lowest in Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Tripura. The basic needs approach to economic development depends on the minimum specified quantities of basic necessities, including food, clothing, shelter, water and sanitation that are necessary to prevent ill health and undernourishment.
Although the basic necessities access has improved in Odisha between the taken years, it still is lagging behind several economically poor states. Except for some improvement in urban areas, the State has continued to slog in the bottom rung with measly below 0.5 improvement in scale from 2012 to 2018.
The State is among bottom three in drinking water accessibility index. Micro-environment in urban areas has improved in 2018 as compared to 2012 for all states except Odisha and Assam. The index measures the percentage of households who are living in a dwelling unit with access to drainage.
Though the access to housing has improved over the years and the inter-State disparities have also declined, Odisha has failed to make a major stride in the housing index that not only measures the structure (pucca or kutcha), but also the quality in terms of dwelling unit type and condition of structure.
However, it is better placed in the sanitation index that analyses households by access to latrine, piped sewer system and septic tank. The access to kitchen, water tap, bathroom, electricity use and type of fuel used for cooking has improved in Odisha during the period.