Situational analysis: Poverty in Orissa

Thursday, 1st June 2006

The state of Orissa is located on the eastern coast of India. It has a population of 36.8 million.

Despite its rich natural endowments, Orissa remains the poorest of the fourteen major Indian states, with 47.15 percent of the rural population (or 17.35 million people) living below the poverty line.

(National Sample Survey (NSS) th 55 round 1999/00) Non-income indicators of social welfare also rank Orissa consistently below national averages, with health and education being considerably worse among the poor.

The Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) of the state is 87 per thousand live births (the highest in the country).

Despite Orissa ranking well below national averages in terms of social welfare indicators the issue is not necessarily one of a lack of resources, but poorly managed systems of delivery, poorly informed decision making, weak policies and unaccountable delivery mechanisms.

A further factor in the disparities and limited impact of progressive programmes within Orissa lies in a lack of accountability and underlying social mobilisation or transformation.

Other contributing factors include: continued dominance of traditional elite, an extremely heterogeneous population, limited decentralisation and low levels of political awareness among poor people.

Not only is Orissa extremely poor, it is also a very unequal state, with large disparities between regions, social groups and classes, and men and women.

Regional discrepancies are true for almost all social sectors; the pattern being higher indicators of poverty in the southern and northern districts in comparison to the coastal districts.

Ethnic and gender disparities are also obvious with the poverty incidence of STs (73%) and SCs (52%) are well above that of other groups (33%).

Women in Orissa also continue to face discrimination and oppression, the quality of their lives are severely hampered by their lack of access to education and health
resources.

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