http://www.centralchronicle.com/20070409/0904304.htm
This byline writes a small significant note about Orissa quietly forging ahead. Somehow, It is a quite short on the specifics. But, It might be a sign of good things to come.
If we look at the potential of the underdeveloped states(U.P, Bihar, M.P, Chattisgarh,Orissa etc.) the basic aspects which could provide development lie in the following lines.
a) Human Resource Potential
b) Agricultural growth
c) Industrial progress.
By Any means, everyone will agree that Industrial progress is happening. But there are some bottlenecks. The govt says that currently there are about 45 MOUs which are in progress in various stages. Out of them about 25 are functional right now. The problem is that most of the BIG MOUs (Tata's , POSCO,Mittal) are stuck in various phases due to the common SEZ problems.
The basic issue is the land acquisition problems which have been dogging all these cases. Some methods have been outlined in fixing these issues in my previous blogs. It remains a big challenge for the development of this state to provide a fine balancing act in such matters.
We have spoken about basic industrial growth but, then with a natural cycle of progression the Higher tier of investments needs to happen. There is no fear for a power supply since, Orissa is a power surplus state. the next tier should focus on bringing commerical investment in this area. Some signs that we see are encouraging. The Puri-Konark pipeline has become a hub for commercial investment in this regard. The tourisum potential of this place, has not even been explored to even 10% of it's value.
Plans should be made to utilize the immense potential of the Chilika green zone, starting from satpada near puri to southern chilika stretches. I believe satpada has a potential to become a major tourisum deswtination since, I'm not aware of any place in India which boasts of such a large pool of Irrawaddy Dolphins.
We do hear other stories like FM stations coming up in BBSR. In itself this might not be significant, but this is a sign of the massive growth of the commercial retail culture starting to prevail in the state. Purists might consider this as no-value for the common man, but economists do explain that this has a trickle down benefit on the nearby areas.
Human Resource Potential:
Coming to the Human resource potential in the state, the liberalization of the education in the state lead to creation of a massive talent pool. Institutes like KIIT are establishing benchmarks which lead them to challenge IITs in various forums. As a matter of fact Microsoft last year selected some 10 odd people for campus selection from this college. This is better than lots of NITs (Previously known as RECs) and i think it is better than even some lesser IITs.
Also, lots of private organizations are queueing up for investment in education here.
To name a few,
Sri Sri art of living foundation
ICFAI
and last but not the least, vedanta university.
I'm sure that if these universities come up there will be immense education value in which will lead to creation of High tech companies in the state. Already signs are being seen. Mindtree has chosen BBSR to be it's next research HUB as opposed to Kolkata. So signs are optimistic.
The key would be to provide political will to enbsure these big ticket investments are successfull.
Agriculture
Coming to the agricultural front, It is a quite difficult to analyze if real development is happening. Here, the concern is not so much on numbers in terms of productivity, but to check the Human value it is important to improve basic living indexes in rural areas. Claims are being made that irrigation has improved in the last few years. The problem is that there are no means at this point to independently corroborate this data.
The living indexes results show orissa pretty much at the bottom of of all faces, although Mr. Naveen patnaik stands tall among chief ministers. The key issue would be to implement Human and land reforms, and improve factors like Living index, birth rate, IMR etc. which would generally benefit.
In this factor two small newsitems can be minutely corroborative.
1. Increase in amnount of rice cultivation for rabi crop in orissa from 2.37 lakh acres to 3 lakh acres.
2. The NREGA scheme.
This might be the reason why we dont hear about any starvation deaths in the recent past.
Hopefully, this is good news, but the real challenge lies in providing right filip for agricultural growth in the state.
This byline writes a small significant note about Orissa quietly forging ahead. Somehow, It is a quite short on the specifics. But, It might be a sign of good things to come.
If we look at the potential of the underdeveloped states(U.P, Bihar, M.P, Chattisgarh,Orissa etc.) the basic aspects which could provide development lie in the following lines.
a) Human Resource Potential
b) Agricultural growth
c) Industrial progress.
By Any means, everyone will agree that Industrial progress is happening. But there are some bottlenecks. The govt says that currently there are about 45 MOUs which are in progress in various stages. Out of them about 25 are functional right now. The problem is that most of the BIG MOUs (Tata's , POSCO,Mittal) are stuck in various phases due to the common SEZ problems.
The basic issue is the land acquisition problems which have been dogging all these cases. Some methods have been outlined in fixing these issues in my previous blogs. It remains a big challenge for the development of this state to provide a fine balancing act in such matters.
We have spoken about basic industrial growth but, then with a natural cycle of progression the Higher tier of investments needs to happen. There is no fear for a power supply since, Orissa is a power surplus state. the next tier should focus on bringing commerical investment in this area. Some signs that we see are encouraging. The Puri-Konark pipeline has become a hub for commercial investment in this regard. The tourisum potential of this place, has not even been explored to even 10% of it's value.
Plans should be made to utilize the immense potential of the Chilika green zone, starting from satpada near puri to southern chilika stretches. I believe satpada has a potential to become a major tourisum deswtination since, I'm not aware of any place in India which boasts of such a large pool of Irrawaddy Dolphins.
We do hear other stories like FM stations coming up in BBSR. In itself this might not be significant, but this is a sign of the massive growth of the commercial retail culture starting to prevail in the state. Purists might consider this as no-value for the common man, but economists do explain that this has a trickle down benefit on the nearby areas.
Human Resource Potential:
Coming to the Human resource potential in the state, the liberalization of the education in the state lead to creation of a massive talent pool. Institutes like KIIT are establishing benchmarks which lead them to challenge IITs in various forums. As a matter of fact Microsoft last year selected some 10 odd people for campus selection from this college. This is better than lots of NITs (Previously known as RECs) and i think it is better than even some lesser IITs.
Also, lots of private organizations are queueing up for investment in education here.
To name a few,
Sri Sri art of living foundation
ICFAI
and last but not the least, vedanta university.
I'm sure that if these universities come up there will be immense education value in which will lead to creation of High tech companies in the state. Already signs are being seen. Mindtree has chosen BBSR to be it's next research HUB as opposed to Kolkata. So signs are optimistic.
The key would be to provide political will to enbsure these big ticket investments are successfull.
Agriculture
Coming to the agricultural front, It is a quite difficult to analyze if real development is happening. Here, the concern is not so much on numbers in terms of productivity, but to check the Human value it is important to improve basic living indexes in rural areas. Claims are being made that irrigation has improved in the last few years. The problem is that there are no means at this point to independently corroborate this data.
The living indexes results show orissa pretty much at the bottom of of all faces, although Mr. Naveen patnaik stands tall among chief ministers. The key issue would be to implement Human and land reforms, and improve factors like Living index, birth rate, IMR etc. which would generally benefit.
In this factor two small newsitems can be minutely corroborative.
1. Increase in amnount of rice cultivation for rabi crop in orissa from 2.37 lakh acres to 3 lakh acres.
2. The NREGA scheme.
This might be the reason why we dont hear about any starvation deaths in the recent past.
Hopefully, this is good news, but the real challenge lies in providing right filip for agricultural growth in the state.
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