Economic Implications of Natural Disasters in Orissa : A Retrospective View

Abstract

Over the years, India has witnessed a trend of decline in the incidence of poverty. However, the total number of poor is still high and regional imbalances persist. Years of development have not changed its economic condition uniformly throughout the country. The gap is very wide from one state to another. At the state level, among the major states, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar and Sikkim had more than 45 percent of their population below the poverty line in 1983. In respect of the worst affected State of Orissa, Sahu (1997) estimated the ratio of people living below the poverty line to be more than 60 percent upto the period 1983-84. An earlier study by Mahendra Dev etal. (1992) had revealed that, around 65 percent of rural population in Orissa were living below the poverty line in between 1961-62 to 1986-87. The figures varied only in a negligible way. Yet another study of the Expert Group (1993) reveals the fact that there were 61.5 percent of people living below poverty line in the state during 1987-88, instead of the quoted figure of 48.3 as percent estimated by the Planning Commission during the same year. The figures of 2003-04 have also nothing to add to our jubilation in the fact that proportion of people under below poverty line during the year was found to be 47.2 percent during 2003-04.

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