Infra-structural differences between districts of Orissa
by Purna Mishra from World Bank report and Planning commission report.

Dear Umashankar Babu,
You are absolutely right in saying that progress in health is a key indicator of progress. The Planning commission monitors the progress or lack of in seven significant areas and the commission compiles these data by districts for each of the states. The commission calls these seven areas are basic building block of a civilized society and call this group "Infrastructure". In a country like India, the seven major infrastructural factors that are most significant in accelerating the pace of economic development are: energy, transport, irrigation, finance, communication, education and health. While the first five refer to economic infrastructural facilities, the latter two relate to social infrastructure.

This is the definition of Progress used by World Bank and followed by the Planning Commission of India. "World Development Report 1994 published by the World Bank under the title " *Infrastructure for Development" *rightly mentions that "the adequacy of infrastructure helps determine one country's success and another's failure ‘ in diversifying production, expanding trade, coping with population growth, reducing poverty, or improving environmental conditions" (World Bank 1994:2). Mody (1997: xii) aptly suggests that in any modern society, infrastructure plays a pivotal role- often decisive role in determining the overall productivity and development of a country's economy, as well as the quality of life of its citizens". According to him infrastructure can be defined as activities that provide society with the services necessary to conduct daily life and to engage in productive activities".

The following is quoted from the reports of Planning Commission:
"Thus, by taking seven sub-sectors of the infrastructure such as transport, energy, irrigation, banking, communication, education and health, when we compute the composite development index of infrastructure for the different districts of Orissa by assigning weights to the different sub-sectors according to the CMIE value, it is found that among the old undivided districts the level of development disparity has been reduced over the years. In the early 1990s among the 13 old and undivided districts, six were found to be infrastructurally developed with a CDI value of more than 100. It may be noted that the average CDI value of infrastructure for the state is taken as 100 and on this basis by assigning different values given to the seven sub-sectors by the CMIE, the respective CDI value of the old districts has been worked out accordingly. It is found that in the early 1990s the infrastructurally developed districts among the 13 old and undivided districts of Orissa were, Puri, Cuttack, Sundargarh, Baleswar, Sambalpur and Bolangir in the descending order. Among the seven infrastructurally backward districts, Kalahandi was the most backward followed by Koraput, Phulbani, Dhenkanal, Kendujhar, Ganjam and Mayurbhanj in the descending order. The co-efficient of variation (C.V.) value reflecting inter-district level development disparity in infrastructure was found to be 22.15 per cent.
However, in the year 2000-01 when the C.V. value of those 13 undivided districts of the state is computed for the infrastructure sector, it is found to have come down to 15.62 per cent. At the turn of the century, there has been a marked shift in the infrastructural development positions of the old undivided districts. Ganjam among the backward districts of the early 1990s is now elevated to fifth position in the rank order, whereas the rank position of Sundargarh, which was third in the early 1990s is slid down to seventh position. Among the old undivided districts of the state the number of infrastructurally developed districts during 1990-91 to 2000-01 has increased to six from seven. Those are: Puri, Cuttack, Baleswar, Sambalpur, Ganjam, Bolangir and Sundargarh in the descending order. Similarly, the backward districts in the descending rank order of infrastructural development are: Dhenkanal, Phulbani, Koraput, Kendujhar, Mayurbhanj and Kalahandi. This implies that during 1990-2000 while the rank positions of the most developed and most backward districts of the state have remained unchanged, the infrastructural development scenario of other districts has either shown some improvement like the case of Ganjam or deterioration like the cases of Sundargarh, Mayurbhanj and Kendujhar. Further, it is revealed that according to CDI value of the infrastructure, all the four undivided coastal districts of the state and three highland districts namely, Sambalpur, Bolangir and Sundargarh are developed in the state's development parameter. In contrast, the backward tribal dominated districts of eastern ghats region comprising Koraput, Kalahandi and Phulbani as well as Kendujhar and Mayurbhanj of the northern plateau region are found to be infrastructurally backward (Tables - 2.2 & 2.3).

It may be noted that the old 13 districts of the state were reorganized into 30 districts in 1992. So, it is essential to make a focus on infrastructural development positions of the newly reorganized 30 districts of Orissa in more detail. According to the composite development index of infrastructure in the year 2000-01 half of the total number of districts in the state are found to be developed with an index value of more than 100. Among the developed districts, Khurda's position is found to be at the top followed by Puri, Jagatsinghpur, Cuttack, Bhadrak, Ganjam, Sambalpur, Baleswar, Sonepur, Jajpur, Bargarh, Jharsuguda, Kendrapara, Sundargarh and Bolangir in the descending order. The backward districts of the state from the top to bottom in the descending order of the rank positions are: Nabarangpur (30), Kandhamal (29), Nuapada (28), Malkangiri (27), Nayagarh (26), Kalahandi (25), Kendujhar (24), Rayagada (23), Mayurbhanj (22), Boudh (21), Deogarh (20), Gajapati (19), Angul (18), Koraput (17) and Dhenkanal (16). The C.V. value reflecting inter-district level disparity in the development of infrastructure among the newly organized 30 districts of Orissa is found to be 23.45 per cent (Table- 2.4).

When we look at the infrastructural development status of the 30 new districts vis-a-vis the old undivided 13 districts in Tables 2.3 and 2.4, it is found that both the developed as we ll as the backward districts among the old districts depicted a picture of intra-district level development disparity of infrastructure. It is observed that the so-called developed among the old undivided districts also contained many backward pockets/ new districts such as Nayagarh in the case of Puri, Deogarh in the case of Sambalpur and Gajapati in the case of Ganjam. However, the infrastructural development position of the backward old and undivided districts is so low that none of the newly carved districts among them has been able to earn the status of developed or advanced. Rather, owing to uneven development at the intra-district level the inter-district level development disparity in infrastructure among the newly organized 30 districts of the state has shown marked increase as compared to the old and undivided districts".