$5 Trillion Economy: Odisha not among key driver states says SBI report

Bhubaneswar:  While a report titled “Economic Possibilities for Odisha Towards a One Trillion Dollar Economy” released by Jindal Group in July this year predicted Odisha will play a key role in making the country touch the 5 trillion dollar mark by year 2025, a recent report of SBI research cell doesn't see any such role for Odisha.

The SBI research report authored by SBI Group Chief Economic Advisor Soumya Kanti Ghosh, which was released on December 2, quite clearly  observed that states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana as well as Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh are the states which are likely to contribute more towards Modi Government’s goal of reaching $5 trillion economy.

The warning shot here is Odisha's name didn't find any mention. The lead author of the study, Dr Ghosh, has taken the yardsticks of Ease of Doing Business, tax revenue mobilised, GSDP growth, Fiscal deficit, population growth, unemployment, National Highway length and Power availability in a state to rank it's contribution to country's $5 trillion economy benchmark.

As per the report, Odisha exhibited strong showing in decadal population growth and urban unemployment rate (see the picture below).

It said "Here we see South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and even Odisha lie in 1st quadrant, implying these states have lower unemployment rate as well as lower population growth rate."

In the indicator of 'Ease of Doing Business and collection of tax revenue',  Odisha  fared poorer than neighbouring states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal (see the image below).

The State fared poorly in the indicator of 'Growth & Fiscal Deficit'. The study has placed Odisha in unfavourable quadrant (see the picture below).

Odisha also failed to make it into the favourable quadrant in the indicator of infrastructure like power availability and national Highways length (as depicted in the graph below)

The bottomline is Odisha has to address the lag-in factors in its economy that are playing drag-down role on the economic front.