Posts filed under ‘State Watch-Monitoring the Odisha State’
Following is a report from the TOI:
BHUBANESWAR: Though Odisha tops the list of states with the highest rate of newborn deaths, it did not bother to find out the causes behind it, a latest report of the comptroller and auditor general of India (CAG) has pointed out. The CAG report for general and social sector for 2015-16, tabled in the state assembly on Saturday, pointed out that a committee of the government medical colleges and hospitals (GMCHs) were supposed to review the deaths once in a month. However, these did not conduct any review to identify the causes of death in past three years. “During 2013-16, the committee did not meet at all. The state government did not ensure sitting of the committee at regular intervals,” the CAG report said.
“Though the neonatal mortality rate (death of newborn within 28 days per 1000 livebirths) of the state was the highest in the country….the GMCHs had not conducted any death review to identify the causes of death,” the audit watchdog pointed out.
According to Sample Registration System (SRS) 2013, the neonatal mortality rate of Odisha stood at 37 compared to the country’s average of 28.
The health department had formed a committee in 1984 to review causes of deaths occurring in government medical colleges and hospitals. Ending the system in September 2013, the department directed the medical colleges to conduct review of the deaths by their clinical departments. However, the colleges did not conduct any review in the past three years, the CAG said
The report also pointed out that the hospitals did not conduct any prescription audit, which ensures rational use of medicines and discourages promotion of a particular brand. The health department issued an order in September 2012 that such audits would be done annually by a engaging professional agency. A senior officer of the health department said the review process will start soon.
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September 18, 2017 at 9:50 am sanjibkarmee
Following is a report from the pioneer:
Here is a reality check for Odisha when the State Government is aggressively on the path of image makeover as the State was tugged up along with 15 other States as a low-growth one by the country’s planning watchdog Niti Aayog in its latest report ‘Ease of Doing Business: An Enterprise Survey of Indian States’ released last month.
Significantly, the new classification of high- and low-growth States in the country by the Niti Ayog is based on the computation of a median annual Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) from annual real GDP growth rates of the States for the period 2004-05 to 2013-14, whereby the States that experienced equal to or above the median rate are tagged as high-growth ones and those fell below as low-growth States.
Odisha in this Niti parameter could record an average year-on-year growth rate of only 6.59 per cent for the period 2004-05 to 2013-14 and, hence, fared poorer than States like Bihar, which with a year-on-year growth rate of 9.45 per cent prettily grouped among the high-growth States. The story doesn’t end there. Even among the 16 low-growth States, Odisha’s average year-on-year growth rate is only higher than three States, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir and Manipur.
More shockers the report delivered are: In Odisha, not even 32 per cent enterprises have availed the benefit of the State’s much-touted Single Window System owing to poor implementation on the ground. Also, only 22 per cent enterprises in the State have any knowledge about their environment category and, thereby, the State finished second from bottom. Moreover, in access to finance by enterprises in Odisha, the State’s entrepreneurs did speak of greater amount of obstacle in access to institutional finance.
In the important indicator of dealing with legal issues, enterprises in Odisha speak of facing legal disputes unlike States like Bihar, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Uttarakhand where none of the enterprises have reported of facing any legal disputes, reveals the Niti Ayaog report.
While the Odisha Government has pulled up its socks to come as the number one business-friendly State, the Niti Ayog report pricks the reality prevailing notwithstanding averments. Odisha didn’t figure in the top -3 in the vital indicator of time taken for getting approvals across all areas of doing business. An entrepreneur can start his business in just little over two months in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Odisha fared the poorest by taking 95 long days to provide electricity connection to an upcoming enterprise when Karnataka takes only 31 days.
Moreover, when Odisha claims itself as a power-surplus State, it didn’t figure in top -3 States led by West Bengal and Delhi where enterprises faced the least power shortages of 11-13 hours in a month.
Odisha rated as low-growth State. (From the Hindu)
More hurdles in setting up new businesses vis-a-vis other States: NITI Aayog
Despite the government claiming to have provided business-friendly environment to investors and attracting huge investments in past decade-and-a-half, Odisha has been categorised as a low-growth State in the country in the latest NITI Aayog survey.
High growth States
The NITI Aayog’s ‘Ease of Doing Business Report: An Enterprise Survey of Indian States’, released on Monday, points at more hurdles in setting up new businesses in Odisha compared to other States. The 15-high growth States include Bihar, Uttarakhand, Tripura, Sikkim and Meghalaya.
The NITI Aayog and IDFC Institute, its knowledge partner, have classified States on the basis of their average annual real growth rate using State Gross Domestic Product from 2004-05 to 2013-14.
Median average
“We calculated the median average annual growth rate, which turns out to be 8.14%. The States that experienced annual average growth rate equal to or above the median were classified as high-growth States and those with annual growth rate below the median were categorised as low-growth States,” the study stated. At a growth rate of 6.59%, Odisha falls in low-growth category.
According to the study, enterprises in high-growth States reported fewer regulatory hurdles. This establishes an empirical link between superior regulatory environment and better economic performances.
Power connection
“On average, enterprises reported taking 52 days, 61 days, and 76 days for getting electricity, water, and sewerage connections respectively. The World Bank 2017 Doing Business report ranks India at number 25 for getting electricity connection and it is estimated that getting the connection takes about 46 days. It takes an average of 31 days to get electricity connection in Karnataka, 32 days in Gujarat and around 95 days in Odisha,” says the report.
Odisha is listed among States with lowest proportion of enterprises having knowledge of their environment category. Only 22% of enterprises in Odisha are aware of their category.
Similarly, the age distribution of high-growth and low-growth enterprises shows that in general, the share of young enterprises is higher in the high-growth States than in the low-growth States.
Around 20% of enterprises in Odisha are young whereas percentage of young enterprises in Bihar is above 70%.
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September 9, 2017 at 6:44 pm sanjibkarmee
Following is a report from the Telegraph
Bhubaneswar, Aug. 12: Another case of dengue death was today reported from the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, while swine flu has already claimed nine lives in the state this year.
When the state is facing multiple health issues, a Bhubaneswar-based organisation, the Centre for Youth and Social Development (CYSD), has conducted a survey on the issue and challenges of primary heath care facilities in the two most backward districts – Kalahanadi and Balangir. The survey reveals how people are still not getting basic health services, including ambulance services.
The study was conducted in Balangir and Patnagarth constituencies of Balangir district and Narla and Junagarh constituencies of Kalahanadi district. The infamous Daana Majhi case that was reported last year, where Daana had to carry the body of his wife for nearly 12 kilometres after being unable to get the ambulance, was reported from Kalahandi district. In these four constituencies, a total of 37 primary health care centres have been selected by the organisation. The study covered primary health care centre, sub centres, villages and communities in these areas.
The expert team interviews 50 per cent of out patient department (OPD) patients visiting each PHC. The patients were selected on the basis of convenience and snowball sampling method. They were asked to share their satisfaction levels and experience at the primary health care centres. Total 370 patients (10 patients from each primary health care centres) were covered. Besides, the grassroots services providers – Accredited Social health Activists (Asha), auxiliary nurse midwives and anganwadi workers were interviewed on implementation of various government schemes.
They find unavailability of buildings as a major problem in imparting health care service to the patients. In absence of adequate and habitable staff quarters, it won’t be possible to put a check on doctor absenteeism and 24X7 primary health care centres won’t function smoothly. The primary health care centres need to be converted into 24X7 centres with in-patient department facilities.
Provision of safe drinking water and power back up (important in case of power failure during emergencies) are also major issues at the primary health care centres. The unavailability of diagnostic services and referral transport is causing a lot of difficulties for the people. While in some instances people are bound to pay higher prices in getting their medical condition resolved, in other cases, many are often showing lack of interest due to lack of money (thus, turning again to traditional healing methods or quacks).
The service providers also showed displeasure in many aspects. The doctors showed discontent regarding unavailability of staff quarters leading to daily commuting to the primary health care centres (few of them which are in remote areas).
Though medicines never run out of the stock and the quality of the medicine is good, the people don’t trust the quality of medicines as they think that government medicines are free and therefore, might be of poor quality. In many cases, doctors allegedly prescribe expensive medicines that patient parties have to buy from outside.
Asha and auxiliary nurse midwives are the health activists in the community who create awareness on health and its social determinants and mobilise the community towards local health planning and increase utilisaton and accountability of the existing health services. But these service providers face various issues at the ground level, such as communication problem, excessive field area and too much workload.
The survey report also alleges that the Asha workers are losing interest and motivation to carry out their regular duties as they are not getting incentives at the right time. Some of them also remained absent on the MAMATA Divas which is held on the second Friday of every month. Due to this continuous absenteeism, the beneficiaries have started losing trust on Asha workers.
Another major issue is lack of ambulance facilities and the people depend on their own bikes and bicycle, to reach to hospitals. Lack of ambulance facilities often turn out to be fatal for pregnant women. The status of 102 and 108 ambulance services is in highly deteriorated condition and people have been grossly disappointed.
CYSD co-founder Jagadananad said: “The study is an attempt to understand the nuances of the primary health care services provided at the grassroots and to gather the perceptions of the community regarding the services like access to health, infrastructure, human resources.”
Delivery in auto-rickshaw
A woman of Sunakhandi Tikarpada village in Kalyansighpur block of Rayagada district delivered a baby in an auto-rickshaw on her way to the hospital on Saturday. Her family members alleged that though they called the 102 ambulance service to rush her to Kalyansinghpur Community Health Centre after she complained of labour pain, the ambulance did not turn up.
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August 16, 2017 at 7:20 pm sanjibkarmee
BHUBANESWAR: Despite political stability for past around two decades, Odisha continues to remain among the bottom three states on quality of governance, a latest survey of think-tank Public Affairs Centre (PAC), Bengaluru shows.
The PAC’s public affairs index (PAI) published on Friday ranks the state 16th, just above Jharkhand (17th) and Bihar (18th), among the 18 large states. The state comes 27th if all Indian 30 states are considered together. Kerala tops the list.
The state’s rank was 15th among 17 large states in 2016 when Telangana was not considered a separate state. So, the state’s position effectively remains the same third from bottom. The overall rank continues to be 27th this time too, raising a question mark on governance of the Naveen Patnaik regime, which is in power for fourth term in a row since 2000.
The PAC has measured the states on 11 various criteria of governance. Odisha has been ranked the last (30th) in crime and law and order, slipping from its 23rd position last year.
The survey says it has considered rapes, murders, dowry and custodial deaths, police firing, police personnel per 10 lakh population and percentage of women police among the total cops in preparing the index. The state witnessed 2144 rapes and 1328 murders in 2016.
“As the minister in-charge of home department, Naveen is responsible for law and order, an area in which the state is on the bottom among all Indian states. It’s deplorable,” said leader of opposition Narasingha Mishra.
The state also fared badly in delivery of justice (ranked 26th) in which factors such as pendency of court cases, number of under-trials and vacancies in courts were considered. More than 12 lakh cases are pending in various courts in the state including around 1.68 lakh cases in the Orissa high court, official sources said.
BJP spokesperson Sajjan Sharma said the survey only reflect the BJP’s oft repeated allegation of total governance collapse in the state.
BJD spokesperson Samir Ranjan Dash said irrespective of the findings of the survey, the governance in Odisha under Naveen has emerged as a model for others. Many schemes of Odisha such as Mamata, a direct cash benefit scheme for pregnant women was replicated by the Centre. Many other states have opened subsidized cooked meal outlets following Odisha. “I don’t think governance here is bad. Except for Maoists problem, I don’t think the law and order is overall bad,” Dash said.
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June 18, 2017 at 9:41 am sanjibkarmee
Following report is from the Sambad:
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February 23, 2017 at 12:05 pm sanjibkarmee
Following is a report from the TOI:
ROURKELA: After Bhubaneswar, the state has one more contender for the smart city tag. The steel city of Rourkela on Tuesday was accorded the smart city honour with the Centre listing it among 27 cities in its third list released by the Union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu.
The capital city was adjudged the smartest city in the country in October last year. Rourkela had missed the opportunity in the first and second round but managed to get the tag in the third round. Sources said the massive participation of the people in the opinion poll in the race to the smart city fetched it the tag.
The small village of Rourkela became a modern industrial town after the public sector giant, the Rourkela Steel Plant, was established in 1958. Like Bhubaneswar, Rourkela was also designed by the Germans. In November 2014, the state government upgraded the Rourkela municipality into a municipal corporation.
The smart city tag to the city by the Centre is also an indication of the BJP planning to strengthen its base further in the region. The city comes under Sundargarh district, where BJP stalwart and Union tribal affairs minister Jual Oram is the Lok Sabha MP. The Rourkela assembly constituency is also represented by Dilip Kumar Ray, another senior BJP leader.
After the Centre’s announcement, the city erupted in joy. The industrial hub, like the capital city, which has planned a series of programmes for the city’s makeover, will soon turn into a model town. More foreign investment is likely to be pumped into making the smart city.
Apart from injecting smart ways into the planning to ensure a stress-free workplace, the municipal corporation has planned to develop the city from the Bisra Chowk to Panposh. This area has been decided to be Rourkela’s upscale area like that of Bhubaneswar.
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September 24, 2016 at 9:41 am sanjibkarmee
Following is a report from the IE:
Amidst a walk out and protest by Congress and BJP members, the Odisha Assembly today passed the Birla Global University, Odisha, Bill – 2015.
The Bill, which was introduced by state Higher Education Minister Pradeep Kumar Panigrahi, was passed in absence of opposition Congress members who protested rejection of some of their amendments.
“The objective of the bill is to impart quality education in the state through the Kolkata-based Birla Academy of Art
and Culture, a non-profit making trust registered under the Indian Trust Act, 1982,” Panigrahi said.
Stating that academic activities in the proposed university would start in two years, the Minister said the
institute would become a private self-financed unitary university in the state.
There would be seven schools like management, architecture and planning, social science and humanities, law,
natural science, marine science, and communication to function under the Birla Global University, Panigrahi said.
The state government has already provided 29.4 acres to Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH) at
Gothapatna, Bhubaneswar and the promoters have created physical infrastructure to set up the institute, Panigrahi
said, adding the proposed university would be run by a board of governors, board of management, academic council and finance committee.
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December 11, 2015 at 8:22 am sanjibkarmee
Following is a report by PTI http://www.ptinews.com/news/6802853_Central-team-to-visit-drought-hit-Odisha.html
Bhubaneswar, Dec 1 (PTI) A 10-member Central team led by Union Joint Secretary, Agriculture, K Srinivas is scheduled to undertake a visit to Odisha’s drought affected areas from Thursday, officials said today.
The team, which will reach the state capital tomorrow, will visit the drought hit areas in separate groups on December 3 and 4, Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) P K Mohapatra said.
The team will have a meeting with state officials here on December 5,
Mahapatra said the Centre has constituted an inter- ministerial team led by Srinivas after the state government submitted an interim memorandum on drought.
The team will fly to the affected districts of Nuapada, Kalahandi, Balangir and Bargarh in two groups in a helicopter. After visiting the four districts, the team might take a decision to visit other drought affected districts, the SRC said.
The team will leave for New Delhi on December 6.
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December 1, 2015 at 7:38 pm sanjibkarmee
Following is a report from the Hindu:
Growth rate in Christian population in Odisha has made a quantum jump by 478 per cent in past 50 years compared to 323 per cent and 130 per cent in case of Muslim and Hindu population respectively.
Analysis of population on religious basis in Odisha as per 2011 Census, which was released by the Census Directorate, Odisha, here says if 1961 Census is taken as base, total population in Odisha has gone up by 139.19 per cent from 1.75 crore to 4.19 crore.
Christian population among three dominant religions has increased from 2.01 lakh in 1961 to 11.61 lakh in 2011 – a growth of 478 per cent. Muslims have grown by 323 per cent from 2.15 lakh in 1961 to 9.11 lakh in 2011. Compared to this, population of Hindu, which is dominant religion in the State, has made slow growth from 1.71 crore to 3.93 crore (129.52 per cent) in the same period.
As per 2011 Census, share of Hindu population in Odisha has come down from 94.35 per cent from 2001 to 93.63 per cent. However, percentages of Muslim and Christian population have seen jump from 2.07 to 2.17 per cent and from 2.44 to 2.77 per cent respectively during past one decade.
Bishnupada Sethi, Director of Census, said: “Ganjam, most populous district of the State, has more Hindus than other districts in both the Censuses (2001 and 2011). Cuttack has largest Muslim population by Bhadrak district. Similarly, Sundargarh is having highest Christian population followed by Gajapati and Kandhamal.”
Among Hindus, the highest growth rate of 23.25 per cent is recorded in Balangir district and the lowest growth rate of 7.02 per cent is recorded in Jagatsinghapur district.
Similarly, Muslims have grown by 38.50 per cent, highest growth rate, in Kalahandi district. The highest growth of Christians population is recorded in Baudh district (118.41 per cent).
Population of Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains is found to be in few thousands in Odisha. While Sikh population in 2011 is 21,991, Buddhists and Jains are 13,852 and 9,420 respectively. Ironically, decadal growth in population in unclassified sects and no stated religions in Odisha have increased spectacularly between 2001 and 2011. Population with no stated religion has increased from 20,195 to 76,919 in the last decade.
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September 12, 2015 at 4:07 pm sanjibkarmee
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