Odisha Aranyak (Musing)

Q1. What are the human issues of Odisha posing both as advantage and disadvantage??

A1.?

Lord Jagannath is the abhiman of most Odias. We not only depend on His grace but flaunt Him wherever and whenever we can. Let it reign supreme in our minds. This has hardened into Odia attitude. A part of it is contributed by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. While spiritual make up of masses improved, laziness crept in. Under similar circumstances, Western states in India got used to Jugaad, finding disruptive local solutions to people or mechanical issues. Later the Jugaad attitude turned into innovations and entrepreneurship. But Jugaad is very sporadic in Odisha. Everyday issues accumulated in the state as there is no perceptible open think tank or government induced think tank. Initially blame was passed into political instability and no unity of focus in state building. But then political instability theory was replaced by internal sabotage management when stability was real in congress era. Soon that narrative evaporated with BJD in saddles for decades and raring to go in further. Electoral politics is a natural process of democratic existence but the state grossly lacked pure blooded statesmen. Street smart and boss manager politicians brandished the length and breadth of the state. Lack of imagination and staying power of opposition were accentuated by free play of freebies arranged from three sources, Centres revenue distribution, state natural resources like mines and forests etc and unbridled debt raising often in disregard of fiscal prudence. We have a saying that citizen attitude is a replica of governance attitude (Yatha raja tatha praja). Let it go and Kalia will take care are the twin anchors of Odisha human advantages to rule the state but a disadvantage for rapid economic development of the state due to complacency.?

Q2. What are the social and economic issues of the state within current political configuration??

A2.?

State is progressing but question is pace of progress. Some argue and I agree that current generation is living beyond its means mortgaging the interest of future generation. Everyday economic issues are usually self-vanishing but in Odisha there is total lack of planning much less dispersion planning. Issues are accumulated in two ways, as aggregate liability of the state redeemable in future and as lack of attitude to sweat hard by the masses which forms a habit. The hurdles in the progress are created by the stakeholders rather than act of God. State has earnt a good name for disaster management and relief logistics. But what is humanitarian has assumed an event management attitude. Resource mobilization, infrastructure creation, capacity creation and augmentation, moving towards service intensity, creating reciprocal interdependence with self-sufficiency in goods and services shortage of which can lead to black mail are prime economic planning of the state as consumption is supply induced, well known and not highly elastic upwards in short run. Potato, Onion, Tomato politics with other states indicate the action urgencies. Socially state is doing well in focussing on woman empowerment and transportation of both human and goods traffic has shown marked improvement. But agriculture remains a socio economic concern. Farmers are in distress both at input and output ends. Even the through put marked by land usage, agro-infrastructure maintenance, real consolidation, training and soil quality improvement are hardly looked into by the governance system. Here also it is let it go attitude. Law and Order is perceived as more for political management than people centred. Education is least concern of the system, whatever achieved must be due to urge of students to secure their future and concern of parents to tutor children to stand in the society. Successive education ministers of the state in last two decades speaks it all. Quality and quantity of manpower manning the universities and the bureaucracy above that are pitiably inadequate to express in few words. Then comes the centre state fight on health care. Every treatment is meant to be a publicity event if successful. There does not seem to be any honesty of purpose though infrastructure is getting better. It is more due to demand push than supply planning. More due to political appeasement than facility planning and dispersion with an eye to manage the technical demands. Pollution and environmental issues manifest in degradation of land, depleting natural resources, and loss of biodiversity in Odisha. A new sewerage system in Bhubaneswar created investing thousands of crores over time span of last twelve years particularly in Baramunda Area does not function. Government is unconcerned. Why alone Mahanadi, most rivers do not get attention they deserve for which no centre of research exists in Odisha as available in places like Pune. According to the World Air Quality report published in 2021, Odisha is showing signs of quick deterioration. Corruption, crime and engineering supervision system flaws cannot be invisible even to a blind as the blind is better endowed to sense the all pervasive malice. Over all socio-economic pedestals of the state begs for a shake.?

Q3. In this era of e-governance where does Odisha appear?

?A3.?

In the year 2004 Odisha came out with the Information Technology and ITeS Policy. The e governance roadmap of Odisha was released on 14th June 2006, which compromised of governance vision, governance strategy and blue print and capacity building road map. Team work, technology, transparency, transformation and time limit are the five factors on which performance of government officials and projects will be judged.CM Naveen Patnaik approved 5T action plan for Higher Education Department, to ensure better service delivery to public in Higher Education sector. But if Higher Education be the test, the execution has failed. E-Governance is an instrument of the Information Society in the form of governance principles, strategies, systems and tools that enable the use of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) in mutual interactions between and among the key members of the society; state, citizens, and businesses. The most common interactions in e-governance are Government to Citizens (G2C), Citizens to Government (C2G), Government to Businesses (G2B) and Government to Government (G2G). Government is attempting to be citizen centric for which there is a spree of institution building and capacity building. Common Service Centres have sprouted at many places, back-office automation, SWAN (State Wide Area Network) and State Data centres are in place and content development has dispersed upto Panchayat level. All these are laudable but as is usually joked fifth generation technology is meant to be managed by first or zero generation manpower. May be abundant manpower will be trained by government if only political will be invoked. Odisha has already established software parks in 4 cities Bhubaneswar, Balasore, Cuttack, and Berhampur, and waiting for approval from the center to establish such parks in Rayagada, jeypore, jajpur, Sambalpur and Bhawanipatna. The leading IT companies like Infosys, TCS, Tech-Mahindra, Wipro, IBM Mindtree, Genpact and other companies are already present in Bhubaneswar. State business environment is also attracting small and start-up companies.?

Q5. What is your poetic expression for states affairs??

A 5.

Something Odisha was withholding in its natural shelves?

Until we Odias found out that it was only ourselves.?

Looking at Naveenji now,?

I think of the language he left for us to live by.