Honouring the people’s trust
Interview with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
NAVEEN PATNAIK has had a long and successful journey as the Chief Minister of Odisha and president of the Biju Janata Dal. In this interview, the leader who has brought about many transformational changes in governance tells Frontline that Odisha is a land of resources and opportunities and he will continue his endeavour to fulfil the aspirations of its people.
You have been Chief Minister for over 22 years. Political analysts and practitioners have given different reasons for your longevity in office. In your view, what are the key factors that have enabled this?
Trust. People of Odisha trust our party to fulfil their aspirations and their children’s future. We value it from the bottom of our hearts. Every step we take, every scheme we launch is towards honouring that trust and fulfilling the dreams of the people of the State.
When you came into politics nearly 25 years ago, you were expected to fill the void left by Biju Patnaik, your father and a legendary freedom fighter from Odisha. At the time, you had no experience in political management. What political and development vision did you have then?
Our party is named after Biju Babu and follows his ideals. He had great dreams for the development of Odisha. Our single-minded focus has been to realise his vision for the State and make Odisha the best in every field.
Looking back at your track record from the perspective of your early vision, what do you consider are the achievements of your government so far?
When I took office, Odisha was deep in crisis after the super cyclone of 1999. The financial situation was also quite bad. Slowly and steadily, we steered the State out of the crisis and started a large number of welfare programmes and infrastructure projects.
Odisha is one of the most disaster-prone States in the country. We have successfully created disaster management governance to tackle any major disaster like cyclones, floods, etc. Odisha is now known worldwide for disaster management. Odisha used to be defamed for starvation and hunger. Our focus on irrigation and agriculture has helped Odisha become a State that leads in paddy procurement.
Our road network is among the best in the country.
You go to any remote area in the State today [and you will see that] it is well connected by roads and bridges. The Swabhiman Anchal-gurupriya bridge is a good example. We … lead in [the production of] iron ore, coal, bauxite, etc. Our crude steel installed capacity increased from 4 MT in 2000 to 33 MT in 2021 and is expected to reach 100 MT by 2030. Odisha is top in aluminium production as well.
We are making huge investments in education, health, skill development, etc., with a clear focus on developing our human resources. Our women empowerment initiatives are being replicated across the country. In most fields, Odisha is emerging as a leader, and I am confident that the transformation that is taking place across the State will produce great results in the coming years.
What, according to you, are the unfinished agendas in relation to the Odisha of your dreams?
We have achieved a lot, but we are also aware that we have a long way to go. Odisha is a land of resources and opportunities. There is great potential and our endeavour has been towards realising it and fulfilling the aspirations of our people.
Odisha’s economy was in a shambles when you took charge as Chief Minister in March 2000. Even a decade ago, the State used to be considered backward. But now it has emerged as one of the top performing States in terms of the Human Development Index
(HDI). What were the administrative and operational mechanisms that your successive governments employed to achieve this?
Odisha is progressing well towards improving the HDI indicators. Political stability has definitely helped the administration focus on governance and execution of schemes. Our focus has always been to provide a transparent, sensitive and performing government.
How are you managing the State’s economy at a time when Central assistance has declined under various schemes ?
Our fiscal management is among the best in the country. Our State financial resources have also been augmented substantially over the last two decades. We have a large number of our own State schemes and projects. Unfortunately, the Central finances have been reducing and it is affecting our pace of development. We are trying to cover these gaps with increased focus on industrial investment.
Odisha was known for massive natural disasters, and State governments used to find it tough to manage them. But in this too the track record of the Ministries led by you has been good. What approach did you adopt to make the State emerge as a leading example on how to handle natural calamities?
We have no choice but to be disaster-prepared to survive. Especially, after the super cyclone, we have a clear focus on disaster management. We follow the principle that “every life is precious”. Therefore, to ensure saving the lives of the people, we adopt the “whole of government” approach. Whether its annual cyclones or pandemics like COVID, we take our job to
save lives very seriously.
You have given development a new direction by empowering women. Apart from reserving 50 per cent of the seats in panchayati raj institutions and urban local bodies for women, you have given them 33 per cent of Lok Sabha seats. Do you plan to allocate 33 per cent of the seats to women in the next Assembly election?
Women are the backbone of society. They should be given their fair share in governance structures. We will continue to lead by example in this regard. In the recently concluded local body elections, 70 per cent of the zilla parishad Presidents are women, much above the statutory norm of 50 per cent.
Odisha has come a long way in the field of sports in the past two decades. Where do you see the State in the world’s sports map in the future?
After the Tokyo Olympics, Odisha has been recognised for its support to sports, especially hockey. We are investing in sports infrastructure projects and coaching programmes across the State. Kalinga Stadium is being developed as a world-class stadium with all the latest facilities. Odisha is already a global hub for hockey [and hosted/will host the] … World Cups in 2018 and 2023. Odisha will become [a]… leading sports destination and will significantly contribute towards India’s emergence as a sporting superpower.
Industrialisation has been your government’s focus. How do you plan to strike a balance between development and protection of the environment?
Odisha is endowed with rich natural resources. While industrialisation is a major focus to grow our economy and provide employment, we are conscious of the fact that development has to be environmentally sustainable. We are among the few States where the forest cover has increased in recent years [and is now] … 33.5 per cent of the total area [of the State].
Since industries have not succeeded in creating enough employment, what measures are you taking to check migration from the backward regions of the State?
Odisha has been performing well in industrialisation. However, industrialisation alone is not sufficient for employment. We are focussing on agriculture and allied activities as well for livelihoods. We are ensuring that there is no distress migration through social support and livelihood schemes.
You wrote a few books before you became Chief Minister. Will we get to see the return of the author in you in the future?
[Laughs… and says] Whenever I have some time.
Odisha is one of the fastest growing States in the country at present, boasting a growth rate much higher than the country’s GDP growth rate of 8.8 per cent. Its per capita income grew by 16.8 per cent in 2020-21. The average growth of per capita income over the last 10 years has been 10.3 per cent, against the national average of 9.15 per cent.
KALAHANDI’S TRANSFORMATION
The government’s prudent financial management over the years has resulted in a significant reduction in poverty. The rate of poverty, which stood at 57 per cent in 2005-06, had come down to around 24 per cent to 32.61 per cent in 2011-12. According to the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) 2021 of NITI Aayog, Odisha’s MPI score is 0.136 against the country’s 0.118. In terms of headcount ratio, 29.35 per cent of the population in Odisha is identified as multidimensionally poor, which places Odisha ahead of all other States in composite fiscal performance index. In terms of reduction in MMR (maternal mortality ratio), Odisha has been performing better than other States. It is also performing better in dealing with wasting and stunting of children.
A year after Naveen Patnaik became Chief Minister in 2000, the Kashipur block in Rayagada district hit the headlines following the death of at least 20 people who had consumed gruel made of mango kernel. Rayagada was adjacent to Kalahandi district, which in the past was depicted across the globe as a symbol of hunger and stark poverty. The scene has changed dramatically. “Kalahandi is no longer a laboratory of poverty but a rice bowl and a model of development,” Naveen Patnaik said in January 2021 while inaugurating an irrigation project in the district that was expected to benefit over three lakh farmers across 25,275 hectares. “Kalahandi alone supplies as much rice as the combined quantity of 10 States to the central treasury. All this has been possible because of the strong will of the farmers of Kalahandi and the strong will of the people,” he said.
When Kashipur was in the news for all the wrong reasons, the government ensured that families living below the poverty line received 16 kg of rice at Rs.4.75 a kg every month. The scenario changed gradually across the State, and there have been no starvation deaths for many years now.
Along with the expansion of the food security programme, the State government took on extra financial burden, over and above the subsidy that the Centre pays, to make rice available to the poor at low prices by launching the ‘Rs.2 a kg rice’ scheme on August 1, 2008. The price of rice was further lowered to Re.1 a kg from February 2013. Naveen Patnaik did not stop there. His government launched a food security scheme on October 2, 2018, to benefit 25 lakh people who were left out of the National Food Security Act. “On Gandhi Jayanti, launched Odisha’s own food security scheme to benefit 25 lakh vulnerable populace that were excluded from coverage; sufficient and nutritious food is a basic need and prerequisite for a healthy Odisha, as a part of our resolve to eradicate hunger in Odisha,” he said in a tweet after launching the scheme.
AUGMENTING REVENUE GENERATION
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Odisha was considered one of the most fiscally stressed among all general category States. The State’s debt–gsdp ratio in 2002-03 was 50.73 per cent, compared with the national average of about 34 per cent. The liquidity position was in bad shape and treasuries were virtually closed for most days; the State barely managed to disburse its employees’ salaries.
The turnaround was made possible by augmenting revenue generation and rationalising expenditure as per the terms and conditions of the Mous signed with the Centre, first in 1999 and then in 2001. The revenue augmentation measures included introduction of taxes on professions in 2000, introduction of VAT (value-added tax) in 2005, use of It-based tools in tax administration
for improving compliance, periodic revision of rates of various tax and non-tax revenues and monthly reviews of revenue collection.
The government enacted the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act in 2005, following the recommendations of 12th Finance Commission and subsequently made necessary amendments to the FRBM Act as per the recommendations of 13th and 14th Finance Commissions. The State has adhered to all the parameters envisaged in the FRBM Act every year since then. Further, there has been a decline in the average cost of borrowing from 12.6 per cent in 1999-2000 to about 6.7 per cent in 2020-21. The debt stock/gsdp ratio, which was as high as 50.73 per cent in 2002-03, has been brought down to 20.5 per cent in 2020-21 against the target level of 25 per cent. The State’s revenue deficit was as high as 5.38 per cent of the GSDP in 1999-2000. However, it could achieve revenue surplus after a gap of 22 years in 2005-06 and has been maintaining a revenue surplus so far.
As a green initiative, the State has reduced physical printing of budget documents from 500 sets to 200 sets and now distributes budget documents electronically to stakeholders. The result: a reduction in the number of printed pages by 57 lakhs, which means that about 700 large trees are saved. The State intends to switch over to complete paperless electronic budgeting in the coming years.
Road communication across the State has improved. The once backward district of Malkangiri, which had a strong Maoist presence, now boasts better roads and hospitals with good infrastructure. As law and order remains under control, the activities of Left-wing extremists have also seen a remarkable decline.
EMPOWERING WOMEN, FARMERS
Empowerment of women has been one of the key development initiatives of the Naveen Patnaik government. The Mission Shakti programme that he launched in 2001 has more than six lakh Women’s Self-help Groups (WSHGS) with over 70 lakh as members.
As the Mission gained strength, a separate Directorate was created under the Department of Women and Child Development. Subsequently, a separate Mission Shakti Department was created in 2021 to help strengthen the initiatives undertaken by different government agencies and bring them on one platform to ensure greater focus.
Apart from providing the seed money and revolving fund for the WSHGS, facilitating credit linkages, implementing interest subvention schemes and ensuring market linkage to SHG products, the State has handed over all of the sectarian policies followed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Narendra Modi at the Centre. Incidentally, the BJP and BJD were in alliance during the Chief Minister’s first two terms between 2000 and 2009. But relations had soured by 2007 when front organisations of the Sangh Parivar unleashed anti-christian communal violence in different parts of the State. The not-soconcealed objective was to convert Odisha into a second Hindutva laboratory after Gujarat, which was then under Modi’s chief ministership. While breaking away from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Patnaik roundly castigated the BJP’S sectarian politics.
Since 2007, the BJD has been charting a political path divergent from that of the country’s two big mainstream parties, the BJP and the Congress. In 2007, the Congress was not only the principal opposition to the BJD in Odisha but also the leader of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) at the Centre. In the following years, too, the BJD had to adjust with Union governments run by political parties with divergent political ideologies, governance perspectives and administrative outlook. Yet, the Chief Minister and the BJD were able to keep the State’s development track on a notably positive course.
Prafulla Das & Venkitesh Ramakrishnan
unused government properties in panchayats to the SHGS federated under the Mission to use these for social and economic uplift of the area. The government had also roped in the WSHGS for providing cooked food to migrant workers returning home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The government has taken proactive measures to help small and marginal farmers, landless agricultural labourers and sharecroppers under the Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme by providing them financial assistance. There have been no major farmers’ agitation since the scheme was launched in January 2019, and the scheme has provided financial security to the beneficiaries, who have stopped going to moneylenders for loans. A sum of Rs. 1,874 crore has been earmarked for the KALIA scheme in the Budget for 2022-23.
The Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana (BSKY), a smart health card scheme that came into effect in September 2021, is expected to benefit about 3.5 crore people. It provides families with annual cashless health-care coverage of up to Rs.5 lakh, while women are eligible for an annual cover of up to Rs.10 lakh. The beneficiaries can avail themselves of health-care services in about 200 hospitals across the country.
Odisha is a frontrunner in strengthening the Panchayati Raj institutions. Naveen Patnaik increased reservation of seats for women in PRIS to 50 per cent from the 33 per cent mandated by his father, the late Biju Patnaik. He has also reserved 50 per cent seats for women in the urban local bodies. His Janata Dal reserved 33 per cent of Lok Sabha seats in the State for women in the 2019 elections.
BATTLING COVID-19 AT THE GRASS ROOTS
When COVID struck, Odisha declared the pandemic a disaster from the beginning. It involved the gram panchayats in battling the pandemic and bestowed sarpanches with the powers of a District Collector to deal with the situation when cases started increasing with the return of Odia migrant workers from other States. The sarpanches in 6,798 gram panchayats worked dedicatedly in the management of quarantine centres and other COVID-CARE institutions after the State government accorded front-line warrior status to them and announced Rs.50 lakh as compassionate assistance for family members if any sarpanch died in the pandemic.
COVID-19 treatment was provided free of cost. As many as 57 COVID hospitals and 46 COVID-CARE centres were set up in different parts of the State with 6,673 beds and 2,544 ICU beds. The number of total tests done was 3,12,00,012 until the third week of April this year, with 95.87 per cent testing negative and 4.13 per cent testing positive. Of the 12,87,998 persons who had tested positive, 12,78,737 had recovered while 9,124 had died and 84 were undergoing treatment as on April 25.
SLUM-FREE CITIES
The State has been taking drastic measures to make all the urban centres slum-free through the Jaga Mission.
The transformation of all slums into liveable habitats is being achieved through a range of interventions by provisioning for in-situ and heritable land rights, in-situ upgradation of all slums with nine basic infrastructure components, and rehabilitation of slums from environmentally hazardous locations to well-planned new habitats created at suitable places.
According to the 2011 Census, 23.09 per cent of the urban population of the State — almost 500,000 households — was living in slums in 114 urban local body areas without any security of tenure. In 2017, the State passed the Odisha Land Rights to Slum Dwellers Act in recognition of slum dwellers’ contribution to the cities’ economy. This landmark piece of legislation, which aims to benefit every landless person who lives in a slum in municipalities and notified area councils, is the first of its kind in the country.
The Jaga Mission is being implemented in all the 2,938 slums in 114 urban local bodies. A total of 1.75 lakh families were given land rights under the scheme and 585 slums were converted into model colonies, said Naveen Patnaik while addressing newly elected Mayors and chairpersons of ULBS, on urban governance and initiatives on March 25 this year.
Naveen Patnaik has also announced that the MUKTA (Mukhyamantri Karma Tatpara Abhiyan) Yojana, which was started by the State government during the COVID-19 pandemic for the urban poor and migrant workers, will continue. A provision of Rs. 500 crore has been made for the scheme in the 2022-23 budget.
The expansion of the infrastructure for supply of drinking water had not kept pace with the rate of urbanisation of the State. Poor service coverage, intermittent supply and high-water losses were the predominant challenges. To address the problem, the government now places greater stress on improving the level of urban drinking water services with easier and equitable access for all categories of people. The investments in the urban water supply sector have increased by about 20 times in recent years. With universal coverage almost achieved, the government has moved into higher orbits in drinking water supply with Mission Drink from Tap. The mission has been implemented in Puri and is being expanded to cover 20 other urban centres.
Odisha’s mining sector has started generating substantial revenue. While around 61,000 workers were employed directly in major mineral activities, as per the estimates available up to December 2021, total mineral revenues in 2020-21 was Rs.32,485 crore (provisional). The jump in mineral revenue allows the State to direct spending towards developmental purposes.
Moreover, being in power for the fifth consecutive term has helped Naveen Patnaik execute a successful transformation process, making Odisha an empowered State by allowing freedom to the bureaucracy and making governance transparent. The transformation is visible in all corners—be it community health centres, schools or the major religious centres that attract a large number of pilgrims and tourists. m