Multidimensional Poverty Index: BJP & Congress Slam Odisha Govt For ‘Dismal’ Show; BJD Counters

Bhubaneswar: After the release of NITI Aayog’s ‘National Multidimensional Poverty Index: A Progress Review 2023’, BJP and BJD claimed about major achievements made by the Centre and Odisha government respectively in reducing poverty among people.

Congress, on its part, termed the tall claims made by both BJP and as hollow, and said a large number of farmers are reeling under abject poverty amid dwindling income, while jobless youths are hit hard due to lack of employment opportunity in the country, particularly Odisha.

While claiming about major achievements made by the party-led government at the Centre in poverty reduction between 2015-16 and 2019-2021, BJP targeted the Odisha government claiming that the state put up a dismal show during the period.

Addressing a press meet in Bhubaneswar, state BJP spokesperson Satyabrata Panda said collectively, India has lifted approximately 13.5 crore people out of multidimensional poverty in the same period. In 2015-16, one in four Indians (24.85 per cent) met the criteria for multidimensional poverty. By 2019-21, this percentage decreased to 14.96 per cent, or one in seven, the report, which examines three broad indicators of multidimensional poverty — health, education, and standard of living, each comprising various sub-indicators, said.

However, Odisha’s performance was highly disappointing as it failed miserably to implement different poverty alleviation programmes though BJD has been in power in the state for the last 23 years, the BJP leader claimed.

Unfortunately, Odisha finds itself at the seventh position from the bottom in the list of large states in terms of performance in poverty reduction, Panda claimed, adding that the state features at the same place in 2015-16.

However, senior BJD leader and former Minister D P Mishra claimed that Odisha has made rapid strides in socio-economic sector during the period. Odisha is among five states that saw steepest decline in the number of multidimensionally poor.

The state contributed to the fastest decrease in poverty in rural areas from 32.59% to 19.28% between 2015-16 and 2019-2021. The percentage of people living under multidimensional poverty in the state has decreased from 29.34 to 15.68, he said.

Hitting out at BJP and BJD over the issue, veteran Congress leader Narasingha Mishra accused both of making false claims.

Stating that the average monthly income of a farmer in Odisha stood at a paltry Rs 5112 at present, Mishra said the amount earned by farmers in the state is much less than that the minimum wages of workers.

Seeking to know as to how poverty reduction has taken place, the Congress leader said farmers have become poorer in the state due to decreasing income.

Similarly, youths are facing acute unemployment despite the BJD government’s claims about providing jobs to many, including self help group (SHG) members, he said, seeking increased investment in irrigation and education for the benefit of people.