FOCUS ORISSA SUMMIT-2008 -A REPORT

The two day long deliberation on shaping the development debate of Orissa of Focus Orissa summit-2008 was held on 25^{th and 26th of April, 2008 at Hotel Bari International, Bhubaneswar by Focus Orissa in association with Agami Orissa.}

The meeting was formally inaugurated with the lighting of the lamp by Mr. Rabi Das, one of the prominent Sarvodaya leader.

The inaugural session was chaired by Dr. Bhagaban Prakash, a development thinker of international repute and had been common wealth advisor who has authored many articles on the development of Orissa as well. Mr Nageswar Patnaik, one of the active member of Focus Orissa welcomed all the participants to the Summit and briefed about the objective of such a deliberation. Giving an overview of the present state of affairs in the state of Orissa and the global changes happening, he drew the attention of the participants on the objective Focus Orissa has been focusing on. He urged the members present on the occasion that the debate needs to be raised at every level. He exclaimed that whether it is part of our cultural component or something unusual that has happened in our state, which is the root cause of our state being languished in poverty.

Sudarshan Chhotoray, the moderator of Focus Orissa opined that the last 3-4 years of discussion on the development issues of Orissa over Internet has generated lot of curiosity among the development professionals. E-forum has been very active in galvanizing some of the development debates across Orissa and India and now the time has come to take it to the people at large for civic action. Quality of participation has been really encouraging.

Dr. Bhagaban Prakash gave a historical underpinning of the poverty of Orissa. He was of the opinion that something wrong has occurred in the designing of the development of Orissa, which needs to be relooked and corrected upon. The Orissa discovered by Gandhiji in 1925 as the poorest part of the country still remains the same despite of the so-called growth and development. He called upon everybody to work for the common vision and be cautious enough to understand global politics that is operating in Orissa to loot our resources. So a critical mass of quality human resources needs to be developed to take up the cause of state’s development.

Mr. D.K.Roy, convenor of Agami Orissa, drew the attention to the serious problem in the designing of development policies and emphasized on the focus on people in all development plan. He talked of inclusive growth and how it should be oriented to the benefit of all the sections of the society. Apart from that no mechanism to bring the governmental and civil society organizations together to deliberate on the development of Orissa is also a serious concern.

Mr. Panchanan Kanungo, the former finance minister, Government of Orissa had a presentation on the development strategy of Orissa. He shared the concern on the rising poverty day by day in Orissa and development not reaching to the poorer section of the society. He termed it unfortunate on the part of oriyas to beg from centre for every small reason for philanthropy. He specifically told of the present government’s demand to term sun stroke at Orissa as a calamity and criticized the state government’s incompetency to provide solution to such a problem. He advised the gathering to read the book ‘

Responding to the deliberation of the first session, the chairman of the meeting Dr. Bhagaban Prakash hailed the deliberation of Mr. Kanungo terming it quite unusual on the part of the political leader speaking like a development practitioner and he concluded that such kind of deeper analysis and sharing of concern is needed for the holistic development of Orissa where you have head and heart driven into development scenario.

This was followed by the presentation by Sai Prasan and Nageshwar Patnaik on

TRINATH MELA’ by Dwaraka Nath Das which is a story of a lame man and blind man planning for the visit to see God. They devised an interesting method of blind man carrying the lame man on his shoulder and happily visited God without much difficulty. He used the simile of blind and lame as bureaucrats and political leaders. "The irony is that here in Orissa, the lame person is carrying the blind on his shoulder and we can understand where the difficulty lies", he said. During his deliberation, he gave lots of statistical analysis of Orissa’s underdevelopment scenario and criticized the present government for further deteriorating the scenario. Theme Paper on "Orissa in a Globalised Economy: Challenges Ahead".

The conclusion was such as:

• Participatory Democracy is the need of the hour.

• The state government needs to meet the challenges in different fields. All the concerned agencies – state government, media, NGOs and other similar agencies - must launch a massive awareness campaign related to various issues. The change of mind-set is important to overcome all the challenges.

• Only a participatory democracy can help in meeting the challenges of the globalization. And, the participatory democracy can be possible by intensifying the democratic process and bringing transparency across the board.

• A paradigm shift is also needed from an individual centric operation to the structural-functional functioning to establish a just social order with double digit growth with equity or what they call Inclusive Growth in the state.

• "Economics is not just politics….There is more to human progress than aggregate statistics of growth. We have to ask the right questions and concentrate on what matters to people.--------- Amartya Sen

Dr Dhanada Kanta Mishra, state advisor, PRATHAM-READ ORISSA CAMPAIGN, discussed about the sorry state of affairs of the education sector of Orissa and showed concern on the lack of proactive ness is hampering the civil society initiatives to be a partner in change. The presentation had a small video documentation focusing on the intervention of the PRATHAM in Orissa.

The first afternoon session was on "Development issues in Orissa" chaired by Vidhya Das from Agragamee. The speakers present in the session were Umi Daniel and Vidhya Das. Speaking on the issue, Mr. Daniel who is working with Actionaid on the issue of migration drew the attention of the floor. He shared the pathetic condition of the distressed migration in the western Orissa and the policy gap that is evident in this area. The exploitation of labour and human rights violation has to be dealt with much sensitivity and care. He gave a historical underpinning of the Interstate Migration Act and how it is devised looking at the bonded labour (

Ms. Vidhya Das brought into notice the critical areas of exclusion and poor and marginalized people paying the price for development. The development benefit is accrued by the corporate, political parties and contractors, not by the local people. People are kept in utmost poverty, marginalization which is state sponsored. There had been poor implementation of the rehabilitation of the R& R policy. She also took a dig at the anti people policy of the government on subsidies being given to large industries who are totally profit minded and lead to exclusion rather than subsidy to the small scale industries which can help the poor come out of the poverty circle. Peaceful industrialization is a myth and it is the extension of the exploitation of the human labour which was previously done through slavery in the early stage of industrialization.

Next session on "Governance" was chaired by Mr. Achyut Das, Agragamee and there were presentation by Chitta Behera, RTI activist, Mr. Anam Barik, the Oriya migrants’ Union from Surat, Gujarat and Mr. Saroj Das, a Project co-ordinator, Project- Dakshata.

Mr. Chitta Behera hailed that NREGS and RTI are the two important landmark policies that India had ever and appealed everybody for proper implementation of the same and the purpose should not be diluted at any cost due to our ignorance and seemingly suspicion of the objective. He criticized the remark of many of the prominent leaders in the development sector of Orissa for their lack of commitment and proper understanding of the NREGS and cautioned that if we

dadan Shramik) of Orissa. He elaborated how a major part of the GDP is contributed by the labourers in terms of capital but not much had been initiated at the policy level in this unorganized sector and raised concern regarding the growing macro issues in this area.

are not rising upto the occasion this time in implementing the RTI and NREGS with sincerity, we will miss the chance of a radical change in the development of the society.

Mr. Anam Barik, leader of the Oriya migrants’ Union in Surat, expressed the pity of the oriya migrants in Surat and was frustrated by the state government’s apathy towards the oriya migrants. "The only thing that we need is the attention of the government to some

of our concern and keep a watch and pressurize for any violation of rights of its people", he told.

Mr. Saroj Das discussed the panchayat’s role in the development initiative that aims to empower the people at the grassroot. He derived from his experience and urged for more and more citizenry action to bring more and more participation in the governance.

Consolidating the proceedings of the meeting, Mr. Achyut Das pointed about the policy framework needed to be developed keeping the people at the centre of it. Mere growth and projection can’t elevate the vicious circle of the poverty. For this end, we need to bring the civil society players and the government to a common platform to achieve the same.

Date 26.04.08

The day started with some presentations on MDG, health sector, water sector. The next session followed was on financial inclusion which had presentations on Harsha trust, CARE micro credit institution and presentation by Mr. Sai Prasan. The concluding session was on panel discussion among the political leaders of the political parties of Orissa.

1^{st Session}

The post lunch session was on Social Democratic Platform (Manch)

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Prepare Vision /Dream document

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Prepare Development / Prosperity Road Map

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Prepare the political action plan and election management plan

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Social Democratic Party

First document on NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT POLICY OF THE MANCH

Develop a network of new political persons

Odisha is a paradise of natural resources with abundance of minerals, forest, fresh water, good soil and a long coastline. Proper management of the natural resources can harbinger prosperity to Odisha.

Venezuela was a poor country as long as private companies had taken lease to explore, extract and sell petroleum. But once the

In the year 2007 Venezuela provided highly subsidized gas to poor families in America to keep their lives alive during chilling winter.

The platform proposes that a public sector organization will be the sole custodians of all the minerals and will be the leaseholder like Coal India. It will keep extraction / production contracts to professional private or public sector organizations on long-term basis. It will supply the minerals to industries at existing market prices with long term MOUs. It can also sell the minerals in the market.

The income so accrued will be spent on the following issues to ensure

Chavez government took over the mines and gave contract for extraction and sold the petroleum at market prices, it became a rich country. The country before a couple of years was living on doles of America and MNCs. equitable distribution of natural resources.

• Securing basic needs of the 30-lakh very poor households.

• Securing quality basic education and health services for all.

• Infrastructure development in the mineral rich areas.

• Promotion of forests, ecology and eco-tourism.

The Manch will pursue a large- scale people’s movement to achieve the objective.

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The present political leaders/ parties cannot achieve it.

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Even an elected Government will have big limitations in achieving it.

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Implications of the proposed policy on the present day MOUs ?

2. FOREST

A massive peoples movement can achieve it

Odisha has 31% of its land under forest coverage covering 48374 sq. km. The forestland is a rich source of non-timber forest products, timber, medicinal plants, etc. Living besides the ecological centers a good part of the forestland can be scientifically managed to give good material and financial returns.

Forest management is still in its colonial system of exploitative management. Besides products, forests have immense opportunity in the field of tourism.

3. SEA

Odisha has a 470-kilometer of long coastline. The long coastline has nice sandy beaches throughout. The coastline can also have easy communication to the mainland since there are no big barriers.

Odisha has a historic tradition of sea faring and the opportunity has to be explored. Marine fishing staggering at the development of the seventies, needs to be boosted keeping in view the international market and technological developments.

4. FRESH WATER

The fresh water resources can be understood from the information given below:

1/ Yearly rain fall (average)- 1482 mm

2/ Total Water per year- 230.76 Billion Cubic Meter (BCM)

3/ Per capita water availability (average)- 3359 Cu. Meter

4/ Water storage capacity (by dam check dam etc. -17 BCM

Freshwater is a big liability for Odisha, since during the rainy season it is available too much creating heavy floods. This asset has to be utilized by promoting industries and also agriculture. There are also opportunities to manufacture and sell quality drinking water.

5. BIO DIVERSITY

Odisha is rich with bio-diversity. The utility of bio-diversity in the present day market is yet to be studied. Ecology is best protected when it facilitates tourism otherwise there is a constant pressure from poachers and mafia. With rising demand for organic products and services in the fields of healthcare, cosmetics and food, rich bio-diversity can pay high dividends. Odisha has to explore and utilize the opportunities keeping the ecology and bio-diversity well protected.

Realizing MDGs: A Global Challenge

By S. K. Das, NYASADRI

It is a time tested fact that change is the only constant thing in the world. Change is inevitable but Growth is intentional. If the statistics available on the unequal distribution of resources worldwide is any indication, the intention of the present day world leaders to establish a more even and just society is quite suspicious. Today the total wealth of the 3 richest men of the world accumulated is almost similar to the total wealth owned by the 6 million poor people of so called third world. And this is why the gap between the world’s rich and poor is wider than ever. Global injustices such as poverty, illiteracy, gender gap, malnutrition and environmental degradation remain rife. Despite the promises of the world leaders, at our present sluggish rate of progress, the world failed dismally to reach the Millennium Development Goals on time.

The extreme poverty in which more than a billion people are trapped in the world at the beginning of the 21^{st century is a straightway violation of human rights on a massive}

scale. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights protects the rights of all people to an adequate standard of living and well-being including food, clothing, housing, and basic health care.

It is worth mentioning that in September 2000, the heads of 189 States committed on behalf of their people in the Millennium Declaration reaffirming the universal values of equality, mutual respect and shared responsibility for the conditions of all peoples and seek to redress globalization’s hugely unwarranted benefits. At the heart of the Declaration are the human rights, peace, gender equity and environment. The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) emerged from the Declaration, firmly committing governments to a minimal set of goals and targets by a deadline of 2015. The UN Millennium Summit pledged to work towards the attainment of these eight goals covering almost the entire spectrum of burning global issues. While doing so, they were not exactly setting any new goals, but only setting a new time frame to achieve a set of goals that had already been in the global agenda since quite a long time.

Efforts to tackle poverty and deliver sustainable development, as pledged in the Millennium Declaration are grossly inadequate. Governments too often fail to address the needs of their citizens, aid from rich countries is inadequate in both quality and quantity, and promises of debt cancellation have yet to be materialized. Acting upon the repeated pledges by the richer countries to tackle unfair trade rules and practices has remained a hope against hope.

The MDGs are more than mere aspirations. They are more than shared global goals. They are international community's time bound and quantified commitment to cut sharply by 2015 the extent of extreme poverty. The privatization and marketization of development reduced the bargaining capacity of citizens, making them mere consumers of public goods and services. Coupled with such a pretentious policy environment and more rhetoric and less commitment, the inaccessible 'right to information' and of public transparency and accountability degenerate democracy perpetuating the sluggish development.

India realized the MDGs through its 10^{th & 11th Five Year Plans and National Common Minimum Programme of the UPA Govt. and set targets to achieve these even being more ambitious sometimes. But the attainment level of the commitments after 7 years is really a great blow to the whole nation and the trend shown is also very much disappointing. Committing something at the UN General Assembly before the world and fulfilling the promises coming back to the country with its own system and conventional structure are completely different. India is lagging behind many of the countries in addressing the MDGs due to lack of adequate budgetary commitments and the lack of affirmative policy framework. Even if the union government has tried to meet MDGs with the enactment of some new legislations and programmes, on the part of the state governments, it became a great failure due to the dearth of proper orientation at all level of administration and pseudo political will as well.}

Human Development Tab Human Development le 2: Analytical linkage between Human Development and MDGs

‘Today, I have no promises to make, but I have promises to keep. The real challenge for me and for the Government at all levels is the challenge of implementation of our stated policies and programmes’ as said by our Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on 15th August 2004 in his 1^{st Independence Day speech from the Red Fort has proved to be no less than a political gimmick. Today, in the midway of the promises made, the overall impression shall be that the responsibility for the onerous task of achieving the MDGs is not entirely on the government. The civil society engagement has become pertinent to place the goals in micro realities, sensitizing citizens as well as influencing the programmes, policies and practices of the government in an optimistic manner. It may be materialized by highlighting the shortcomings, building positive examples as well as providing alternative database on the accomplishment of the goals.}

As the battle of providing such basic services to the people could not be won in the last six decades of post independent India, undoubtedly there is every possibility of missing it by 2015, unless all relevant efforts are made in this direction. Various civil society groups, ongoing movements, voluntary organizations, community based organizations, trade unions, media, academic institutions, neighborhood groups, associations of various social interests need to come together to strengthen the voices of citizens for attainment of development goals set internationally, nationally and locally.

For example, the Govt. of Orissa set a similar kind of goals during 1960s. And after 50 years of such policy focus, it is quite visible that the state has dropped further in the human development index. For each and every human development indicator, Orissa is today far below the national average and sometimes below the least developed states like Jharkhand, Bihar or even some North-East states. It reveals that our perceptive of the state’s socio economic characteristics is imperfect. And if we have failed to meet the target in last 50 years, there is no way we can realize it in the next seven years with the same understanding. When United Nations agreed for the MDGs, they just set a timeline, but the ground realities in country to state specific does appear a little unfeasible.

Then, what is needed now for attaining these goals by the magic deadline 2015? Taking the global experience into account, we can only assume that we need a new paradigm of developmental planning that makes these goals achievable at least to most extent without fail. This needs to redefining our development model with a more progressive and practical operational framework. Though, the awareness about the MDGs came rather late to Orissa, it is pertinent that the civil society has to shoulder as much, if not more of the responsibility as the

government in the race against time to achieve the MDGs. It is only possible by creating a conducive environment for the realization and effective implementation of the commitments made so far. And the slogan is loud and clear that ‘We are the first generation that can eradicate poverty and we refuse to miss this historic opportunity. To our leaders we say, no excuses, you have to keep your promises. This is the only way to make our world more just and secure place for every single individual’.

References:

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UN Millennium Campaign

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Govt. of India (Census 2001, NFHS III, NSSO 61^{st Round)}

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Planning Commission of India

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Planning and Coordination Dept, Govt. of Orissa

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National Social Watch

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The post lunch session on Mass media and Development was chaired by Rabi Das, one of the leading journalist and columnist. The papers were presented by Mr. Akshay Jena, Sai Prasan, Sarojini Brahma and good amount of discussion was generated by the participants on the present scenario of the development media and the issues inherent in it.

There was a lot of discussion on the role of mass media.

Microfinance had lots of issues. Press is controlled by mafias and no development news gets centrestage of media. We have to create people’s mandate against such trends in media and help expedite the process of development in Orissa. Whether the media is dictating readership or readership is dictating media and how mainstream media is monopolized by few vested interest and not so serious people about the real development of Orissa.

POLITICAL SESSION

The concluding session on the political discussion among the major political party leaders of the state was well attended by academicians, political analysts and different civil society partners. After welcoming the leaders of the political parties, Mr. Nageswar Patnaik presented a review of the political processes taking shape in the state. He raised concern over the lack of political will for the state’s development across all the political parties of Orissa.

Setting the tone for the discussion, Mr. Sudarsan Das, one of the active members of Agami Orissa, drew the attention of the floor to some of the present state of affairs and opined that many of the issues can only be addressed by the strong political will of the political parties of Orissa. "Our political parties don’t have any think tank to design and develop programmes that will cater to sectoral growth leading to social development", he said. Taking a stock of the political history of the Orissa, he said that there had been forty two times change in government and most of them on the line of retaining power. He expressed his sheer frustration over the last few years politics of favouritism and lack of political philosophy for the development of the state. Apart from that, he criticized the power politics that is instrumental in having no political consensus on the major development issues.

KRS Campaign, Orissa

After his initial address, the leaders of the political parties namely Mr. Ranendra Pratap Swain from BJD, Mr. Jatish Chandra Mohanty, President of Samruddha Odisha, Mr. Kailash Mishra, President of Samajwadi Party of Orissa, Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan from BJP, Mr. Baishnaba Parida from RJD, Mr Radhakanta Sethi from CPI (ML) shared their view on the development strategy that their political parties have chosen and how it is going to change the scenario of Orissa. Some of the interesting highlights of the meeting were that it was possible after a long time to bring such political heads to a common platform to discuss face to face. Apart from that, the political proactive ness and environment created by the entry of the new political parties is going to generate ripples in the political sphere of Orissa. He put forward two vital questions among the political leaders present on the occasion. They are

1. Whether we want a growth oriented economy or development oriented economy.

2. Can the political parties come out with the clear cut understanding and positioning of their party’s stand on some of the key sectors and the development path they want to follow.

Responding to the expectation and questions set by the moderators, the political parties shared their views on the same.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Ranendra Pratap Swain showed concern over the social inequalities that are existent in our Indian society. He was of the strong opinion that as long as the problem of casteism and proper representation of the socially marginalized people is not insured in the political and social sphere of the state is not prioritized; it is difficult to bring prosperity in the society. He also talked of the wave of globalization being so strong is bound to influence all despite of our strong attempt to be out of that. So, unless and until we understand this reality, we will just be propagandist in our approach. So a basic change in the social system can only bring lasting peace and prosperity. He also shared his experience of anti mining stand in many instances against the unplanned mining and had tried at his personal level and it is the central government who laid down everything and the state had to comply with the national interest. "We

need to understand this side of the story before blaming the state government for everything taking place in mining sector", he said.

The next person to address was Dr. Jatish Chandra Mohanty of Samruddha Odisha, a newly formed political outfit. He shared his vision of a developed Orissa free from poverty in 5 years and well thought out road map for the same. He criticized the lack of farsightness of political leaders of the state and how they are sub servile to the bureaucrats. He used the simile of horse and horse riders for the bureaucrats and political leaders. If the political leaders for that matter, ministers are not capable enough to control the bureaucrats, the bureaucrats will control the political leaders. He assured that if given a chance for five years, their party will eradicate poverty from Orissa in five years.

Mr. Kailash Mishra, president, Samajwadi party, Orissa branch responded to the propositions made by earlier leaders and emphasized on the economy of political processes and how it can be only strengthened when people fight elections by spending money of their own and not by corporate or mafias. He took some more years to understand these particular aspects of politics and entered politics late to be fully convinced of this aspect. He shared his concern on the rising corporate funding of the politics and emphasized on a planned development and a political discipline to achieve the development of the state.

Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan, sitting MP from Deogarh highlighted the problems of the free market economy and how political parties get influenced by it. He talked of his own dilemma in the internal meeting of his own party and described how the champions of have-nots become the champions of haves and vice versa in this new globalised economy. He emphasized on the development of human resources in the political sphere. He encouraged the initiative of some of the civil society organizations in transforming the people’s live through a rights based approach and ensuring lasting social justice.

The next person to address the people was Sri Baishnaba Parida from RJD. He was of the opinion that there is no people’s politics at present in the state. He reiterated that as long as we don’t see that the poorest person in the society is not represented in the politics, we are going to do no good for the society. He raised his concern on the growing sectarian politics and how core issues are not represented in the politics no more.

The last presentation by Mr Radhakanta Sethi, a former MLA and leader of CPI (ML) criticized the political philosophy of some of the leading political parties and how they have forgotten the very objective of doing politics. He also became critical about the distinct difference in the talk and practice of the so called political leaders who don’t stand by people rather engaged in vested interest at the cost of people’s interest.

FOCUS ORISSA SUMMIT-2008

Organized by Focus Orissa in Association with Agami Orissa on April 25th & 26th, 2008 at Hotel Bari International, Bhubaneswar