Evaluation of economic development in Orissa

The study deals with the evaluation of economic development of different districts of Orissa State with the main objective to rank the districts on the basis of agricultural, industrial, infrastructural and overall economic development indices and to examine the impact of these developments on reduction in the incidence of poverty in the State. The study utilises data at the district level for the year 1990-91 on forty six different indicators depicting various facets of development of different sectors of economy. All the thirteen districts of Orissa have been included in the analysis. The district of Cuttack has been ranked first and the district of Phulbani has been ranked last in the overall economic development. The level of development has been examined separately for agricultural sector and infrastructural service sector. From the composite indices of development of the above three sectors, it is observed that there is greater variability in the level of development in industrial sector as compared to agricultural and infrastructural service sectors. The overall economic development is very much associated with the agricultural development and industrial development. The agricultural and industrial developments are found to be mutually associated which implies that the districts which are agriculturally developed, are mostly developed in industrial sector also. The developments in agricultural and industrial sector seem, therefore, to go hand in hand in the State. The extent of improvement required in different indicators of the low developed districts of the State has been examined. Indicators like irrigation, fertilisers, foodgrains production, fish production and the number of veterinary dispensaries etc. need improvements of varying magnitude in all the low developed districts in agricultural sector. In industrial sector, all the eleven indicators require improvements whereas in service sector improvement is needed uniformally in the indicators concerning medical facilities, decadal growth rate of population, literacy, banking facilities, electrification of villages and length of roads etc