The approach of the Government of Odisha towards poverty eradication is mirrored in the State Budget and the Odisha Economic Survey 2020-21 documents. It is found that the approaches have not changed much and the Government is banking upon charity and doles to ensure welfare of the poor people at the bottom-line.

While a lion's share of the Budget is spent on salary ,pension ,loan and interest repayment, very less, that is, about one-fifth of the Budget, is available for capital investment for long term gain in achieving higher production and employment.

The State Government has less focus on long term capital investment in building public assets. There is no visible plan to make use of modern science and technology in improving the production by changing the traditional mythology. There are a number of evolution studies and reviews of the approach of the Government which have found that many of the Central and State schemes, specially targeted for poverty eradication among the rural poor, STs, SCs and other marginalised sections, are not economically teneble to earn a living.

They are outdated vis-a-vis contemporary changing conditions. These schemes are mostly micro models and individual beneficiary-centered without integration with the local economy. They do not aim to bring any structural change in the continued poverty cycle. Such schemes for last few decades since the eighties have proved to be unsuccessful in meeting their objectives. These schemes are more used for short term political gains rather than for economic activities for the poor.

 As a result, the States such as Odisha continue to be a supplier of chief labour forces to developed States of the country and it has failed to generate viable employment for its working population in spite of availability of vast natural resources such as sea coast and minerals.

 These schemes are also sources of huge corruption at different levels and a major cause of conflict in benefit sharing among the poor in rural areas.The long continuing charity has a negative impact on productive working culture in rural areas and is contributing to negative growth of the State economy. 

It is demanded that rather than doing charity out of State finance, the State must ensure availability of productive assets for the producer communities. But in spite of constitutional mandate, the Government has no plan to share the productive assets with the traditional poor and marginalized sections.

Though there are policy guidelines, laws and executive orders to make available productive assets but for last 70 years of constitutional governance, creation of productive assets gets less priority than short term political gains which come with State charity for the poor.The approach of the Government is not really helping the poor to come out of the poverty circle but to remain as poor.

The Odisha Economic Survey report has not reported about socio-economic issues of the State affecting the poor. The poor people in Odisha are also socially marginalized and discriminated on socio-cultural lines.

Majority of the people in marginalized section in rural areas have been facing hegemonic social contradictions, discrimination in access to market, and in use of public utilities. The Government must ensure a fair share of these communities in owning the public assets and a discrimination free environment in the production and marketing process available in rural areas by enforcing socially inclusive policies for facilitating economic activities.

The public institutions such as banks, cooperatives etc. which play a major role in facilitating economic activities in rural areas are not free from hegemonic control of feudal forces who are also controlling the local politics and selecting beneficiaries of Government schemes.

 There is a need to democratise the access of the poor and marginalised to public financial institutions for economic activities. It is suggested that the schemes of the Government must be localised and fit into the need of the targeted population while encouraging innovations rather than following a common model for all irrespective of social groups and geographical areas of the State.

The Panchayati raj institutions must be given power to plan schemes for their areas with financial power and authority for their execution involving the targeted population.

These schemes must linked to long term productive assets creation for income and employment generation and change the continued exploitative economic structure and unequal power relation.

(manasbbsr15@gmail.com)