ODISHA: KEONJHAR TURNS IT AROUND
In mid-2020, when one-year-old Falguni Nayek was diagnosed with severe malnutrition, the sparse patches of hair on her head turning an unhealthy auburn, mother Sanjukta feared her illness had something to do with the iron ore dust that coats everything in Barbil village, in Odisha’s Keonjhar district. It was a group of ASHA (accredited social health activist) workers who made the correct diagnosis.
Life is grindingly hard in Keonjhar— the poverty ratio is 47 per cent, compared with the last measured national average of 28 per cent. Other human development indicators, though far better than the state’s average, also corroborate its misery: Keonjhar’s infant mortality rate (IMR, measured as deaths of children under one year per 1,000 live births) was 23.6 in 2019-20, according to the district administration, while Odisha recorded 41 per 1,000 and India 29.7 in the same period, as per SRS 2019-20. Says Sanusree Gupta, a nutritionist/ counsellor who works with families in Barbil village: “We had to coax Falguni’s mother with a daily allowance of Rs 200 to bring her child to the nutrition rehab centre.”
A new initiative, under Keonjhar’s District Mineral Foundation (DMF) is putting to use the district’s mining royalties—it has manganese, iron ore and chromium deposits—to improve its socio-economic profile. Ashish Thakare, a proactive district magistrate who took charge of Keonjhar in 2018, is owed some credit for this. Thakare found that a large chunk of the Rs 750-1,200 crore annual royalty was going unutilised, and assigned a corpus to healthcare initiatives—to tackle malnourishment, respiratory diseases, malaria and dengue. A longer term poverty alleviation programme has also been drawn up, at an estimated cost of Rs 4,000 crore.
The district has hired new doctors, even from the private sector, offering them competitive remuneration, including incentives for those willing to stay on longer. There’s a desperate shortage in Keonjhar: one doctor per 13,154 residents against the WHO standard of 1:1,000. About 70 doctors have been appointed since 2019 to fill up vacancies in sub-divisional hospitals, community health centres and district headquarter hospitals. More than 17,000 rural patients, the district claims, have availed of free video consultation with super-specialists at the district headquarters hospital. A digital dispensary system and a mobile lab for diagnosis and tests in remote areas will reduce pressure on tertiary care services in cities and towns by reducing the need for referrals.
The DMF fund is also being used to improve the quality of mid-day meals— by including eggs in the menu—at an estimated cost of Rs 17 crore a year. This covers 230,000 students in some 2,800 government and government-aided schools. Creches have been opened for working mothers, which not only means better institutional nutrition for children of six months to three years but also some elementary education and freeing the older children of these women from caring for their younger siblings. Most importantly, the Rs 2 crore a year being spent on creches and related initiatives will reduce the incidence of ‘wasting’ and ‘severe wasting’ in children.
Keonjhar, district officials claim, was among the first in the country to guarantee minimum wages (Rs 298 in 2020 and Rs 304 in 2021) under MNREGA to all job card holders in all its 13 blocks. As a result, officials say, not a single migrant worker from the district who came back home during the lockdown, has left Keonjhar again. As an incentive to female workers, the 6,000-odd women working in mining areas are also being supported with funds under the state’s Agriculture Production Cluster initiative, which aims at doubling the incomes of women farmers.
Thakare says the sweeping changes have been possible because of the funding available from the DMF. “The government is doing its bit—when we have the capacity, why not make good use of it?” With some luck, backward Keonjhar might soon make news for a far more flattering set of reasons.
HOW BACKWARD DISTRICT KEONJHAR IN ODISHA IS REDEPLOYING EXISTING RESOURCES TO SHORE UP ITS DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS