The Sustainable Development Goals India Index 2020-21 report released by the NITI Aayog has placed Odisha among bottom five States as performer not frontrunner like Kerala and others. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted in 2015 by the UN. 193 countries including India on had agreed upon 17 development goals to transform the world. The NITI Aayog is the nodal agency to monitor and coordinate the commitment made by India to the global community. The 17 SDGs include poverty eradication, zero hunger, good health and wellbeing, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, industry, innovation and infrastructure, reduced inequality, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate action, life below water, life on land, peace, justice and strong institutions and partnership for the goals.
The most priority agenda is eradication of poverty and hunger from the world by 2030. The UN data shows that southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are home to extremely poor people who accounts for about 70 per cent of the global total poor. South Asia is home to half of the world’s poor and India is having the largest number of poor people of the world.
So the success of SDGs depends on a proactive role of India in implementing the agenda with all seriousness. Coming home, continuously Odisha is ranked lowest on many development indicators such as poverty, hunger, and inequality followed by Bihar, MP, Rajasthan, UP, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Assam and Nagaland.
These States are featured among top five bottom States in the SDG index. While the performance of Odisha is good in the field of environment, climate action, land and water but it has unsuccessfully performed in some of core issues such as poverty, hunger and in reducing inequality. It is fact that the economic progress of post independent phase has made affluent some sections of people, but the distress and deprivation of a majority of its population get reflected in chronic unemployment, distress migration, food and nutritional insecurity, diseases and low quality of living. In spite of efforts in many fronts by the State and non-State actors, Odisha remains as before in the poverty chart. It is below national average in social development
indicators, such as health, education and rural social infrastructure, etc. India ranks poorly in the UNDP Human Development Index and Global Hunger Index, placed under the category of ‘serious’. India is home to largest malnourished and hungry population of the world due to lack of access to food. It has been reported that the level of inequality is very high between the rich and the poor and among different social groups. The reduction of poverty in Odisha has been consistently slow in comparison to other States.
It is mostly the vulnerable poor people in rural hamlets, slums, landless wage earners, migrant workers, scavengers, PVTG, single women, children of poor parents, PWD and elderly people who are in most distress condition without sufficient nutritious food to survive. A vast majority of them belong to socially excluded communities who are experiencing social issues along with poverty.
A number of social issues have been affecting the overall social environment, culture and mindset of the people of the region and making the inhabitants more vulnerable. The backward social and educational status has been limiting access to rights and entitlements and all other State sponsored opportunities. Within Odisha, it is the southern and western parts and KBK districts which are home to majority of extremely poor people.
Among them the historically marginalised groups are in extremely vulnerable condition. The regional disparities, imbalances and inequalities continue unabated. Poverty and hunger are not a recent phenomenon for States like Odisha; it goes back to even before its formation as a separate province in 1936. In the year 1866 about 10 lakh people died without food in famine.
The post-independent Odisha has witnessed the continued poverty for a number of reasons and one of the major reasons is the negligence of the federal Government in addressing the peculiar Odisha specific issues such as natural calamities and underutilization of natural resources such as minerals, water, land and forest, coast line etc., and above all the productive manpower of the State. The other important economic feature of the State is the large presence of historically marginalized communities.
Majority of these people arem traditionally poor, asset less and low paid wage earners who mostly live on sustenance economy for survival. The State has not come up with improvement in industry and service sector and still continues with paddy centric traditional agriculture.
Consequently, the overall status of the State has not changed in terms of minimizing regional disparity and gaps among different social groups. The makers of modern Odisha had dreamed of a hunger-and disease-free State but that remains a day dream. Now, Odisha has the third generation of rulers whose families have been running the Government for last three generations and they have engaged people in the same old debate which may continue to fool the people in coming days also.
In a cooperative and competitive federalism, the Centre has equal responsibility to come up with large interventions to change the socio-economic condition of the States such as Odisha featuring in bottom for a long time for many historical and political reasons. But unfortunately, the Centre has been imposing its ownership over the resources of the State and collecting revenue but it is not coming up
with any special package to ameliorate the condition of the people. Hope the SDG Index report will help the Centre understand the complicacies of slow economic progress of the backward States and the real cooperation in federalism will take a shift for inclusive growth and reducing all forms of economic imbalances.
(manasbbsr15@gmail.com)
