BJP, BJD Are Two Sides of Same Coin in Odisha

Amid fake promises, mis-implemented programmes and under-development, Odisha is preparing itself for the Assembly as well as the Lok Sabha elections. While the parties in power at the Centre (BJP) and the state (BJD) have started pointing fingers at each other, the major problems faced by the people of Odisha are not being brought to the forefront by the key parties.

The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government has been ruling the state since 2000, and was in coalition with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) till 2009.

Odisha still lags many other states in areas, such as employment, education, development, agriculture and women’s safety. Overall, development in the state has been stagnant over these years, with the only development visible in the form of roadways.

Ironically, the BJP, which in its coalition years with BJD, had no better face, is today speaking like a completely new party in Odisha. But, can anyone forget its history of being involved in communal violence in Kandhamal, which was the major reason for BJD ending its coalition in the 2009 elections? Today, however, BJP is trying to project itself as a party having no role in the politics of Odisha yet.

In 2018, Odisha was among the top 10 states with high unemployment. The BJP-led Central government had promised to generate one crore job opportunities, a promise that wasn’t kept. The BJD government, too, has failed to generate job opportunities in all these years. Despite conducting numerous employment melas, number of unemployed youth in the state is as high as 9.8 lakh.

The education system, too, has broken down. The literacy rate in Odisha is 73.5% i.e. below the national average of 74.04%. The major challenges in this area are inadequate number of schools, high teacher-pupil ratio, appointment of under- qualified teachers and rising dropout rate. Over these 19 years, the BJD-led state government has not done much in this area. On the other side, nothing much can be expected from the BJP, as a similar scenario exists at the national level, where the party is ruling. With the establishment of the Samagra Shikshya Abhiyan, a major cut was seen in the Sarva Shikshya Abhiyan. In 2018-2019, the Centre estimated spending only 3.5% of the annual budget on education, the lowest in the decade. As a result, people of Odisha have no reason to rely on BJP when it comes to education.

To improve healthcare in the state, the BJD government has been relying on public-private partnerships (PPPs), which would simply make healthcare out of the common people’s reach. In its Vision 2025, the Odisha government is trying to bring in private players to establish primary and secondary healthcare hospitals in the 30 districts. Service-oriented PPPs have been largely given to for-profit private sector companies – ranging from local entrepreneurs to national level and multi-national corporations, like Siemens, Apollo, Ensocare and GE Healthcare. Thus, a range of services is no longer directly provided by the government in hospitals (secondary or tertiary) and primary healthcare facilities. This continuous split between the purchaser and provider in the public healthcare system has been creating further ground for insurance services to take-off.

The introduction of private providers within the public healthcare system changes the legal basis, raises market-related concerns of equity, cost of care, quality and health rights. The diversity of PPP projects in healthcare, based on the kinds of services it provides, the role and number of private parties engaged in the contract agreements, is also creating a complex structure over and above the existing public health care system. With the overall complexity of PPP structures and the plurality of providers, regulation and monitoring has become a mammoth task, along with possible increases in administrative cost, leaving the poor struggling for their basic health care needs.

Also, because of outsourcing, the contractual workforce in PPPs face lower pay and poor working conditions. Public sector authorities most often do not oversee the working conditions of contractual workers employed by private contractors. The implementation of quality control – such as in diet services and occupational safety standards of sanitary workers – by contractors is weak. All these aspects impact the quality of care imparted to patients as well as on workers’ rights.

Recent studies of PPPs and outsourced services in states like West Bengal, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and Bihar show that often private companies do not share data in the name of business secrecy. Even though the new policy emphasises digitisation of patient records, patient data from private providers in outsourcing and PPPs are becoming a commodity instead of valuable inputs that need to be in the public domain. Thus, moving towards PPPs for healthcare is not a bold move by the Odisha government, who is following the same path as the BJP government at the Centre.

Women’s safety, too, is a cause for great concern in Odisha. Cases of outraging the modesty of women are the second highest in the state after New Delhi, as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). This includes cases of sexual harassment under Section 354A of the Indian Penal Code as well as an assault on women to outrage their modesty under Section 354 of the IPC. In the category of crimes registered under IPC Section 354, Odisha tops the list with a crime rate of 23.1, the highest in the country. The latest incident being that of a 20-year-old engineering student allegedly gang-raped by six youths for two days at Lotapahar in Chakradharpur, West Singhbhum, around 80km from Rourkela, before being dumped in a forest on January 2.

Other alarming crimes in the state that received national attention are atrocities against the Scheduled Tribes (STs). Odisha is reportedly third in this category after Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Other crimes in which the state has a shocking record are assault with intent to disrobe (highest in the country), human trafficking (third highest) and robbery (highest).

Taking the record of BJP at the Centre and BJD in the State on several issues into consideration, there is space and need for an alternative in Odisha. For, when it comes to performance and governance, it is clear that both BJP and BJD have different faces but follow the same basic ideas.

The writer is based in Odisha and is a student of social work. The views are personal.