Political parties rush to claim transformation of Kalahandi
KALAHANDI: His lush green paddy fields stretching out in front of him, 45-year-old Suresh Agasti epitomises the shift in the landscape, both physical and political.
Two decades ago, Kanakpur, like every village in Kalahandi, lived in misery. The district was a living symbol of India’s deprivation — its fields barren, its people hungry, and starvation deaths not uncommon. For its politicians, Kalahandi was a district to disavow; to pass blame for a state of affairs that caught international attention. In 2024, on the cusp of a Lok Sabha and assembly election on May 13, the story of Kalahandi’s transformation is a narrative that every political party wants to appropriate.
It is close to noon, and the sun is beating down on Kanakpur in Kalahandi’s Jaipatna block, and Agasti stands next to the farm that now sustains both his family, and gives him a steady disposable income. As he talks, he casts his mind back to the mid-nineties, when in successive years of drought, he watched his father struggle to feed his children. “Our paddy would simply wither away. We would take loan upon loan, there was no food, and we could not afford to pay for anything, even schools and health care,” Agasti says. He points to the clothes he is wearing, a blue shirt and smart trousers . “We couldn’t afford clothes, you know. We wore the same worn things for days on end.”
From the late 1980’s to the early 2000’s, Kalahandi, part of the infamous KBK(Kalahandi-BolangirKoraput) districts became a symbol of India’s rural distress. Droughts were common; there were cases of parents having to sell children; and there were starvation deaths. In 1985, Kalahandi famously saw a 14-year-old girl sold off for ₹40, so a resident family could feed two other newborns. Even 20 years later, the NHRC in a 2006 report said that there were 17 deaths in the year caused by the “highest level of deprivation”.
But Agasti points to one fundamental shift that has changed their lives since then; water from the upper Indravati river project that now courses through 8 of the 13 blocks in Kanakpur, and much of Kalahandi, through a maze of canals. In the last kharif (monsoon crop) season, Agasti sold 480 quintals (each is 100 kg) at ₹1,700 a quintal to a local miller.
“My children now study outside
Kalahandi and for any ailments the family travels either to Vishakhapatnam or Cuttack. Indravati has turned things around in Kalahandi,” Agasti said.
Kalahandi’s chief district agriculture officer Bisweswar Sahu said the quantum of paddy procurement from the district is now second only to Bargarh district in Odisha. “From 2.8 lakh tonnes of rice that the district produced in 2000, it has grown to nearly 9 lakh tonnes in 2023 solely due to the water from Indravati and other irrigation projects. It is now granary of the state.”
In Junagarh block, local businessman Roshan Sahu says that to be a resident of Kalahandi is now a matter of pride, not shame. “Now there is an airport, a medical college and hospital, a university, several private colleges including college for engineering, malls, swanky hotels, smart schools, parks and smooth roads to most parts of the district. Bhawanipatna (the district headquarter town) is a developed place.”
Kalahandi is among four Lok Sabha constituencies in Odisha that will go to the polls in the fourth phase on May 13, as will 28 other assembly constituencies. And with elections fast approaching, every political party wants a piece of Kalahandi.
Bhakta Charan Das, former Congress MP from Kalahandi, who is now fighting the assembly elections from Narla said, “It is the earlier Congress governments who changed the face of Kalahandi.” But at multiple rallies in the district, VK Pandian, the Biju Janata Dal’s most public face has said, “It is Naveen Patnaik who has developed Kalahandi.”
For the Lok Sabha elections, both the BJD and the BJP, considered the primary contenders for the constituency, have fielded new candidates. Lambodar Nial, the BJD candidate said Kalahandi is now the crucible of change, and much of that has come since the party took over the reins of the state at the turn of the century. “Our party has done tremendous work in Kalahandi while the incumbent MP was absent. In Kalahandi, Naveen magic will trump Modi,” he said.
Malavika Keshari Deo, the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate that has replaced the incumbent parliamentarian Basanta Kumar Panda said that there are still problems that remain to be solved. “Only a handful of farmers are able to sell their paddy at MSP (the federally guaranteed base price). Our promise is that farmers will be able to sell their paddy at ₹3,100 per quintal. Besides this, Prime Minister Modi will be a big factor in the polls.”
But even as the state government celebrates Kalahandi, there are pockets of dissonance, where relative distress still stalks village lanes. In Benakhaman for instance, farmer Trilochan Gouda lost 17 acres of farmland in the nineties, when work on the Inndravati reservoir first began. As compensation, Gouda says, he got ₹1,000 per acre, 1 acre of farmland in another location and 4 decimals of homestead land (an obsolete measure in use in East India, a decimal is one hundredth of an acre). But there is a lingering unhappiness. “The government only cares about areas that get water from Indravati reservoir. People like us who lost our home and farmlands have been forgotten. There is neither a proper road nor education facilities near our village. We have to travel to Jaipatna block to access healthcare.”
Experts also say that distress migration away from Kalahandi’s villages still very much exists. “As per our assessment, at least 50,000 people from the district travel away for work after every monsoon. While irrigation may have alleviated some of the distress, there are still issues of rising indebtedness and small and marginal farmers losing their landholdings to land sharks,” said Jyoti Prakash Brahma, an expert in migration studies.
Congress candidate from Lanjigarh assembly constituency Balabhadra Majhi said that neither state nor central schemes were reaching locals in the district. “MNREGA (the federal job guarantee programme) has been a failure as people have to wait for months to get their wages. Irrigation to areas like Lanjigarh and Thuamul Rampur is a pipedream. Naveen Patnaik and Modi talk of a developed Odisha and a Viksit Bharat, but that is not what I see,” Majhi said.