WHY KOSAL STATE IS NECESSARY ?

1. The creation of Odisha province has seen greatest sacrifice made by the Kosali people to accept coastal dialect as the official language even though Kosli-Sambalpuri remains as the sole language of their daily existence. Many Kosali people like Gangadhar Meher, Bhima Bhoi had contributed significantly towards Oriya literature.

2. The Kosali people had not only played a pivotal role in constructing the modern identity of Orissa state but also had made significant contribution towards the development and progress of the state.

3. The Kosali population, according to Census 2001, account for about 39 percent of the Orissa population and the Kosala make-up about 59 percent of the total area of the Orissa state. They contribute nearly 45 percent of total workers and 48 percent of total cultivators in Orissa. Kosala is the source of about 76 percent of net value-added generated in the Orissa manufacturing. In terms of forest resources, it contributes the highest percentage of forestland in Orissa with 66 percent of the total Orissa forest area. Further, Kosal is the richest source of minerals comprising iron ore, manganese ore, base metals (copper ore and lead ore), bauxite, china clay, coal, fire clay, graphite, limestone, dolomite, and precious minerals including diamond in Orissa. In fact the share of Kosal in the total reserve of minerals is 99 percent in the case of bauxite; 100 percent each in the case of coal, dolomite, lead & zinc, and limestone; 30 percent in iron ore; and 28 percent in the case of manganese ore. Its share in the value of mineral exploited in Orissa ranges from 100 percent in the case of Coal as well bauxite to 27 percent in the case of iron ore to 22 percent in the case of manganese ore during 2001-2002. In the case of Orissa’s own tax revenue, Kosal contribute about 39 percent of total sales tax and excise duties each, 33 percent of entertainment tax and motor vehicle tax each, 32 percent of general cess and nistar cess, and 30 percent of land revenue.

4. In the infamous backward districts of Kosal region of the KBK (Koraput, Bolangir and Kalahandi) about 68.8% persons live below the poverty line and even the Chief Minister of Orissa recognized the region to be the poorest region in India.

5. Apart from manifesting in starvation deaths the acute level of poverty in Kosal shows its ugly face in the form of child-selling. Although the news of child-selling dates back to 1985 when Phanas Punji, a thirty year old woman shocked the nation by selling her fourteen year old sister- in-law Banita Punji to one Vidya Podh for Rs 40 to buy food for her children in the Kosli district of Bolangir.

6. The apathy of Orissa government to the incidence of poverty in Kosal region has been most unfortunate in the last half a century. Whenever any news on starvation deaths appears in newspaper the first official reaction of the state government has been to simply deny such incident. The non-seriousness in the government response to the issue of poverty and starvation death in the Kosal had manifested in several cases of improper implementation of the projects sponsored by the central government meant for backward districts of Kosal as noted by the planning commission of India.

7. Various poverty alleviation programmes in Orissa have failed due to rampant corruption, unawareness of schemes amongst beneficiaries and wrong targeting of the beneficiaries. In many cases, the poor people of Kosal even cannot buy subsidized rice supplied through the public distribution system (PDS) due to lack of purchasing power.

8. The minimal developmental resources meant for Kosal region including poverty alleviation schemes has been systematically siphoned-off from the region to the coastal region through corruption.

9. The News Channel, NDTV, reported the acknowledgement of a government official about the system of paying commissions to a whole lot of people including senior officials and politicians even from the funds meant for Food for Work schemes undertaken by the government of Orissa in the drought-affected districts of Kosal.

10. The large-scale misappropriation of Central aid coming under various social security schemes can be seen from the famous September 22, 1999 report of the then deputy administrator (Hrushikesh Panda) of the KBK (undivided districts of Kalahandi, Bolangir, Koraput) that had elaborated upon the widespread misappropriation of funds given by the Centre under agreement with the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and the role of the then district collector, two directors of the IFAD project, and many other government officials forcing Central government to withhold the aid to the poverty-ridden Kashipur block of Rayagada. The Hrushikesh Panda report noted that not a single plant claimed to have been planted under the programme can be traced, payments were made against non-existent works, roads were built from no where to no where, estimates of works were recklessly revised and only non-tribals were
    handpicked as contractors by the officials.

The corruption money going into the account of bureaucrats straightly shifted to the Coastal region as majority of them belongs to that region.

11. This failure of the state government in checking corruption and properly addressing the grinding poverty in Kosal and the corrupted role played by government officials who invariably belong to the Coastal region has naturally fueled discontentment among general Kosli people that they have not received their right share of development even though they are contributing major chunk of resources towards the state. The then Prime Minister of India, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee summed up the developmental disparity in Orissa as follows:

    “After touring western Orissa and interacting with the people of the region, I have come to the firm conclusion that the development of this part of the State, although rich in natural resources like mineral deposits and forests, has been neglected. This has resulted in the impoverishment of the people of this region, which has been left way behind by the developed areas of the State… The stark reality of poverty, hunger, starvation, illiteracy and malnutrition that one witnesses in vast tracts of western Orissa is further highlighted by the fact that the bulk of the people who have been denied  share of the development cake are tribals… In a sense, western Orissa is the real face of India. It is a matter of shame that fifty years after Independence people should die of hunger; that parents should be forced to sell their children for a fistful of rice”.

11. The migrants from the Coastal region are in general economically better-off and educated and they migrate to other states mainly in search of better employment opportunities, and not so much because of desperate search of livelihood in the face of drought or famine, like people in Kosal.
12. Recently there has been a phenomenal increase in the number of women including pregnant one joining the flow of seasonal labour migration from the Kosal raising further issues of gender discrimination in wages, women facing increased health risks and threats of sexual exploitation. Several newspapers are reporting cases of sexual abuse of female workers and selling of child labour from Kosal in other parts of India.
13. The Coastal-dominated state government is completely insensitive to our issues and failed to address the real issues faced by us.
14. The poor performance of Kosal as compared to the Coastal region in the primary as well as higher stages of education may have resulted from various factors but the most important may have been the relatively low levels of government educational expenditure devoted towards the region as compared to the Coastal region.
15. From the point of view of the access to university education through availability of educational institutions there has been a very strong sense of educational deprivation in Kosal. It has only one university, namely Sambalpur University, situated at Burla, Sambalpur district catering to the educational needs of 14.3 million Kosali people spread across a geographical area of 98, 034 square kilometers. The Coastal region, on the other hand, host to a total of seven universities with per university catering of 3.2 million Coastal people spreading over a geographical area of 63,507 square kilometers. In terms of number of sanctioned seats at post graduate level (MA/MSc etc. and MPhil) there is glaring regional disparity in Orissa. The two major university of Coastal Orissa together have 2081 seat strength with a seat-population ratio of 93 seats per million populations whereas the sole Kosali University, Sambalpur University, has only 723 seat strength with a seat-population ratio of 51 seats per million populations. Inclusion of other five universities to the list of Coastal region will further increase its seat-population ratio relative to that of Kosal.
16. One engineering college in Kosal covered about 24 lakh population whereas it covered merely 9 lakh populations in the case of Coastal region.
17. Kosal goes without specialized research institutions as Central Rice Research Institute (Cuttack), Institute Of Physics (Bhubaneswar), Homoeopathic Research Institute (Puri), Regional Leprosy Training & Research Institute (Ganjam), Nabakrushna Chaudhury Development Studies (Bhubaneswar) etc. are located in Coastal region.
18. Kosal has seen relatively low level of quality of education even though it has the backlog of lowest literacy rate in Orissa as compared to Coastal region.

    Kosal has largest percentage of single teacher schools at primary, primary & upper primary, and primary & upper primary & secondary/higher secondary levels of school education as compared to Coastal region.

    In terms of the provision of school infrastructure over region mixed picture emerges. As far as the percentage of student enrolled in schools without building and without blackboard is concerned Kosal appears to be lagging behind Coastal but when considering student-class-room ratio (SRC) is concerned it is relatively better-off.

19. The Kosali people really do not understand why their own state people located in the Costal Orissa have opposed the proposal for making Sambalpur University a central university when this only institution is serving the whole of the Kosal region whereas the Coastal Orissa cornered a total of seven universities. The power politics at state capital favour Utkal University to be made central university as a result of which the proposal to have a central university in Orissa has been lying in official document since long time. These un-helpful attitudes of the state government and Coastal people made Kosali people more aware that educational development of Kosal is not possible under the present Orissa state.
20. Orissa government largely dominated by the Coastal leaders are ruthlessly insensitive to even the humanly issue like health and the natural solution for this discrimination is being sought in the formation of a new state.
21. It is most unfortunate that the people in Kosal region lacked the most basic health facilities which the people in Coastal region are getting; the Orissa government continues to expand relatively more public health services in Coastal region.
22. By 2002 the state government has added about 699 PHCs in the Coastal region compared with mere 467 PHCs in the Kosal region. Considering the population coverage per PHC and per doctor one may likely to conclude that this addition is justified as the Coastal region has got a higher figure than Kosal. However this conclusion is misleading as there are large-scale vacancies of sanctioned doctor posts in Kosal.

    In the name of public health services the Kosal has got hospitals from the government without doctors and infrastructures.

    One PHC in Kosal covered about an area of 165 square kilometers as compared to 81 square kilometers in the case of Coastal region.

    The Kosali people got a real shock when the government of Orissa decided to set-up the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Bhubaneswar with utter disregards to the public opinion in Kosal. When there is already 4-5 super-specialty medical hospitals are already there in Bhubaneswar and another 2-3 in Cuttack hardly 25 kilometers away from Bhubaneswar and also numerous hospitals with modern facilities in the capital city there was no justification for setting up the AIIMS in Bhubaneswar.

    Nowhere in the history of Modern Indian states, will one find such an example where a state deprived its 40 percent of population the spatial access to health services merely for the sake of keeping everything in one region.

    Kosal have got relatively low level of spatial coverage by roads as compared to the Coastal region. Road networks cover 164 kilometer of area in the Coastal region whereas it is 138 kilometer in the Kosal region, the shortfall in the coverage is amounting to be 26

23. In Kosal only 34 post offices per 1000 square kilometers are available against 78 post offices in the case of Coastal region.
24. While the number of banking branches in the Kosal region is 5.6 per lakh population and 8.7 per 1000 square kilometer of area it is 6.1 per lakh population and 21.5 per 1000 square kilometer of area in the Coastal region.

    The banking system has provided a per capita credit of Rs. 1255 to the developed parts of the Coastal region which is one and half times higher than the per capita credit given to the underdeveloped Kosal region (only Rs. 820). Malkangiri with Rs. 354, Nabarangapur with Rs. 398, Debagarh Rs. 421, and Sonepur with Rs. 419 represent the four most lowly per capita credit receiving districts.

25. On an average, every 8 out of ten villages in the Coastal region are electrified whereas this is the case of about every 6 villages in the Kosal region. The number of electrified villages was not even 5 out of ten villages such as Rayagada, Malkangiri, Koraput, Kandhamal, and Debagarh. Only 19 percent of Kosali household have access to electricity as compared to 27 percent of Coastal Household.
26. The Oriya Sahitya Akademi responsible for promoting Oriya language and literature has habitually favoured the Coastal dialect by various promotional schemes like providing cheap financing, publishing and instituting literary awards. The Akademi is bias against the Kosali/Sambalpuri language.

    In the history of modern Orissa one will not find a single piece of evidence where the Coastal people have contributed anything to the cause of the Kosali/Sambalpuri language.

28. Contrary to the promotion, most of the video album- making companies like Samrat and Sarthak based in the Coastal region are loose large to bring out Sambalpuri video cds which are devastatingly filthy and distorted by copying Hindi songs and mixing them with Sambalpuri which undermines Sambalpuri as an independent language.

29. In the case of dance, while Orissa government is continuously promoting Odissi dance in Orissa as well as outside the state, the Kosali dance received the least focus of the government.

Courtsey: http://jaikosal.blogspot.in/2014/09/why-kosal-state-is-necessary.html