BHUBANESWAR: Odisha requires aspirational block programmes instead of regional development councils to address disparities between different areas and communities, including tribal and non-tribal populations, a new study by the economists of National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) has suggested.
The study follows the recent announcement of the state government to have two development councils, North Odisha and South Odisha, to address the regional disparity. It found that the state has 156 backward or very backward blocks out of its 314 blocks in 30 districts.
The NISER researchers drew a comparison between the findings of two commissions set up by the government - Regional Committee on the Constitutions of Separate Development Board in Odisha (RCCSDBO), 1994 and Regional Imbalance Enquiry Commission (RIEC), 2008 along with the recent multidimensional poverty estimates of NITI Aayog.
Altogether 102 blocks in eight districts are tribal majority while 212 blocks and 22 districts are non-tribal majority regions and the tribal majority regions are the most underdeveloped. The RIEC had identified 80 blocks as very backward, 76 as backward, 74 as developing, and 84 as developed blocks.
As per the multidimensional poverty index 2023, Odisha has witnessed a fast decline in poverty with the headcount ratio dropping from 29.34 per cent during 2015-16 to 15.68 per cent during 2019-21. However, the state experiences a high level of regional disparity. The most developed Puri district reported only 3.29 per cent poverty compared to 45.01 per cent in Malkangiri, followed by Rayagada (34.03 per cent), Koraput (33.54 per cent), and Nabarangpur (33.45 per cent).
Associate professor at NISER’s DST Centre for Policy Research, School of Humanities and Social Science Amarendra Das said the poverty headcount ratio implies that southern Odisha remains the most backward region of the state and the highest percentage of blocks in south Odisha are backward, followed by north and west.
“The experiences of Western Odisha Development Council in addressing underdevelopment have been far from satisfactory. The state can learn from the aspirational district and block initiatives of the NITI Aayog and constitute aspirational block development councils (ABDCs) instead of regional councils to monitor implementation of development programmes in very backward and backward blocks,” he said.
The study suggested the ABDCs can create a dashboard for all development indicators and identify the bottleneck in implementing schemes.