Rural dvelopment in Orissa in a worse position

Nothing seems to be surprising regaring Orissa. The State continues to languish among the bottom five states as far as the rural development indices is concerned. Orissa is the only State in the country where a high of 44.4 per cent households don’t have the potential to spend even Rs 12-aday. The landless and the destitute population account for a national high of 16.4 per cent of the total households in the State. Over 50 per cent households (hhs) dwell in katcha houses, 49 per cent hhs are devoid of sanitation, 69 per cent depend on kerosene to light up their houses and again a national high of 84 per cent use firewood to cook their one square meal.Adding to the woes is, a whopping 43 per cent villages are still out of road loop and a high of 40 lakh rural hhs have no electricity connection.The blame lies squarely on the Government for the state of affairs.The inability to spend is because of non-availability of income generating opportunities for the landless and the destitute lot.As per the latest round of National Sample Survey, in Orissa the workers engaged in public work here earn only Rs 50 for men and Rs 46 for women on an average.The lack of adequate public works is solely due to the Government’s failure in provisioning a single rupee for the period 2002-03 to 2007-08 towards the capital expenditure - that ensures creation of new assets/services and jobs - under the rural development expenditure.Moreover, the nonwage and salary component of the revenue expenditure meant for maintaining existing services for rural development stands at Rs 754 crore in 2007-08, which is a mere 0.4 per cent of the total revenue expenditure and only 3 per cent of the total revenue receipts.The Government allocates a measly 0.8 per cent of its gross state domestic product for rural development.However, Government sources explained that the capital expenditure incurred under separate heads like Health and Family Welfare, Education and Transport Departments took care of the required capital expenditure for rural development. But the fact is, capital expenditure towards Health and Family Welfare has declined from Rs 38 crore in 2002- 03 to Rs 20 crore in 2007-08 and in Education too it declined from Rs 19 crore to Rs 6 crore during the same period. The transport sector has chequered capital expenditure with increases and decreases in actual expenditure. So, it is right time the Government focused more towards rural development.