Naveen Patnaik Archives - Lokmarg

How Biju Janata Dal Lost the Plot… and Odisha!

By Kunal Bose 28th June 2024

Who could have thought in one’s widest imagination till the people of Odisha went to the polling booths in four phases to choose members of the Lok Sabha and state Assembly that Biju Janata Dal (BJD) would fare so miserably! Not only was the regional party, which unlike the Trinamool Congress in the neighbouring West Bengal never entertained national ambition, heading the local government for as many as 24 years without encountering any credible opposition from within and without the Assembly, but Naveen Patnaik who remained the chief minister all the while kept the government and the party tightly under his leash.

This became possible as there was not a single occasion that Patnaik could be accused of financial corruption or distribution of favours. An uncommon virtue among politicians in the Indian subcontinent.

That BJD would fare so poorly at the hustings to the extent of conceding of the 21 parliamentary seats 20 to BJP and one to Congress came as a highly pleasant surprise for the party that promotes Hindutva unabashedly. (This stands in sharp contrast to BJD winning all the Lok Sabha seats from the state in 2014 when most of the country was swept by Modi wave. The BJD tally was down to 12 in the 2019 elections. Besides other factors, BJD became a victim of anti-incumbency.)

As if drawing a blank in the Lok Sabha was not enough, BJD suffered the ignominy of handing over the reins of state administration to BJP, which won 78 of the 147 Assembly seats relegating BJD to 51 seats compared with 112 seats it held in the last house. Patnaik, who for very long enjoyed the affection and respect of the people of Odisha, himself fared badly in Assembly elections. Not sure about poll outcome, Patnaik this time contested from two constituencies – Hinjli and Kantabanji. Much to his and BJD’s distress he got defeated at Kantabanji by 16,334 votes and scraped through Hinjli with a margin of 4,636. The elections were a mea culpa for Patnaik whose successes and wide acceptability in earlier years in spite of his embarrassing difficulty to do business in local Odia language made him impervious to the ground falling out from underneath his feet.

Youngest of the three children of Biju and Gyan Patnaik, Odisha’s tallest political family, Naveen was born a year before Independence in Cuttack but was raised mostly outside the state. Naveen, an alumnus of Doon School and St. Stephen’s College, had Indian-American write Gita Mehta who passed away last year as his sibling. Now 77 and not in good health restricting his movement and interaction with people (all a major handicap for a politician), Patnaik, an accidental politician, was a sophisticate before he contested and comfortably won the Lok Sabha seat at Aska – his legendary father’s constituency – in 1997.

Patnaik thereby proved to be someone who had rubbed shoulders with people like Jacquelline Kennedy, Mick Jager and the Beatles and pursued interest in art and culture but then because of circumstances dived into politics. His inheriting “father’s responsibilities and not his privileges” and deciding to go through the rough trade of politics surprised his family members and countless admirers. Knowing him, they likely never thought Patnaik would rule Odisha for this length of time.

ALSO READ: Naveen Patnaik – The Accidental Chief Minister

His failing health apart, Patnaik became so very sure of popular support for him and the party that he founded in December 1997 after breaking away from Janata Dal and remains its president and sole arbiter that he did not realise the consequences of many of his decisions. The worst thing that could happen to a politician in a democracy is when he shuts himself from the people and thereby denies himself the benefit of first-hand feedback. Patnaik went a few steps further. Ministers were finding it increasingly difficult to meet their chief minister. They were given to understand that discussing state matters with V Karthikeyan Pandian, an IAS officer who quit the service to join BJD and confidante of Patnaik, was as good as confiding in chief minister.

Nobody will contest the fact that Pandian did an excellent job in all the postings, including private secretary to the chief minister that came his way. As Pandian resigned from the service in October 2023 to join the BJD, he was made chairman of Transformational Initiatives with cabinet minister rank. Bhubaneswar was then abuzz with speculation that non-Odia Pandian hailing from Tamil Nadu was chosen as the potential political successor to Patnaik and he was to become the principal strategist of BJD election campaign.

The proximity of a Tamilian bureaucrat – his IAS officer spouse Sujata is, however, an Odia – to Patnaik and his becoming arbiter of state affairs gave a handle to opposition leaders at the national level to mount their election campaign on the plank that BJD was out to destroy ‘Odia Ashmita’ (pride in English.) The bonhomie seen in parliament between the union government and BJD during 2019-24 didn’t stop Narendra Modi and Amit Shah from accusing Patnaik of handing over the reins to an outsider. Rahul Gandhi also joined the chorus.

In his defence Pandian said: “I am an Indian by birth and Odia by breath. The mother tongue of my children is Odia and Odisha is my karmabhoomi (the land where one works).” His loyalty to the state and its welfare is above reproach. But from Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan to many BJD politicians, everyone thought Pandian stood accused of wielding extra-constitutional authority and spiriting away the powers of ministers, elected by the people.

Outstation reporters descending on Odisha for election coverage did mandatorily ask common citizens about what they feel about Patnaik delegating more and more authority to Pandian. Their answers can be summed up like this: “Naveen Babu is our revered Biju Patnaik’s son. There is no erosion in our affection for him. He not keeping well doesn’t mean that a Tamil will be his successor. This is not acceptable.” Calcutta has traditionally hosted a large Odia community and some expressed their anguish to this scribe over the ascendance of a ‘non-Odia’ in their state.” Unfortunately, so removed was Patnaik from what was happening on the ground that he failed to realise that the Pandian controversy was to become his Armageddon.

Besides the damage that Pandian factor did to ‘Odia Ashmita’ and in turn to BJD electoral prospects, Patnaik left BJD sympathisers confused by lending unconditional support to the Modi administration in parliament in passing the Citizenship Amendment Act, revocation of Article 370, Delhi-NCT Bill. In the election of the President, BJD voted for the NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu. Patnaik worked on the theme that he would never be part of Opposition attack of the union government as it would work in the interest of Odisha.

Mamata Banerjee and a few others made attempts to rope in Patnaik in the united opposition INDIA, but without any success. Patnaik holding olive branch to BJP throughout last Lok Sabha and also making attempts to have an electoral alliance with the ruling dispensation at the centre, which, however, fizzled out did not ensure that Modi-Shah would not go for his jugular during the election campaign. There is also no denying that BJP owes much to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which continues to expand its infrastructure in Odisha, through educational institutions notably, for its stunning electoral success. Now after the electoral drubbing, Patnaik has realised that as a regional party, the only way to revive its fortunes would be to play the role of a true opposition party in Rajya Sabha where BJD has nine members. Humouring Modi and Shah proved to be the undoing of BJD. Can much be salvaged now?

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Modi the Biggest Factor in India’s Election Results

Modi Will be the Biggest Factor in India’s Election Results

By Sanjoy Narayan 27th May 2024

There are only two elected Indian politicians who are in positions of power today that have never been in the opposition. The first is Narendra Modi, 73, who became India’s Prime Minister in 2014. Before that, for more than 12 years, Modi served as chief minister of Gujarat. In electoral politics, Modi has never been outside of a ruling regime–neither in Gujarat nor at the Centre.

The only other politician to have a similar achievement is Naveen Patnaik, chief minister of Odisha. Patnaik, 77, became chief minister of the state in 2000 and has held that office for nearly a quarter of a century, never ever sitting in the opposition benches.

This year elections are being held for both, the Lok Sabha where the outcome will determine whether Modi will get to serve a third term; and, simultaneously, in the Odisha assembly where the outcome will decide whether Patnaik gets a sixth consecutive term as chief minister.

Now after six phases, the Lok Sabha elections are almost done and dusted–voting in 486 of the 543 seats have been completed, and only 57 seats remain to be voted for on the seventh and final phase on 1 June.

For all practical purposes, the elections are over and India has decided who will form the next government in Delhi. The last phase, whose 57 seats are mainly the remaining ones in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal, and Odisha (where the Lok Sabha polls are synced to the local assembly polls), will only decide the margins by which the winning side will be ahead.

For Modi, a third term looks assured (caveat: you never can be absolutely certain, anything can happen in India’s elections) but by how much will his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies win is the question. They won 353 seats of the 543 in Lok Sabha in 2019. Will they get less or more this time?

Back to that in a moment. What about Patnaik? Odisha’s assembly elections have been synchronized with the Lok Sabha elections in the state and the last phase of the four-phase polling will also be on June 1. While Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has 111 seats in the assembly and the BJP has 22, there has been much hype from leaders of the latter party that they could oust the long-serving veteran and his government. But Patnaik is well-entrenched in the state and even if the BJP manages to gain more Lok Sabha seats there (Odisha has 21 Lok Sabha seats; in 2019, BJD won 12 and the BJP won 8), it is unlikely that it can make a huge improvement in its assembly seats tally. So Patnaik too could likely get another term to run his state.

The BJP’s USP for Voters is Modi

Frenzied speculation is a common accompaniment to Indian elections. And every five years when there are general elections, the general excitement about politics peaks. In the last couple of phases of the ongoing elections, the discourse has also turned unsavoury. Both sides have lobbed attacks on each other but the spotlight has focused sharply on Modi who has been in the centrestage with his relentless campaigning during which he has addressed dozens of rallies; granted interviews to several news channels (Indian has hundreds of those), and been hyperactive on social media.

Even to a casual observer of election campaigning in India, where nearly a billion voters are eligible to vote, it is obvious which leader stands out in the entire spectrum of political parties. It is Modi. There is really none other that can be compared to the salience he commands.

For the BJP, the single most important selling point to voters is Modi, never mind which part of the country it is: whether it is in the states in the north and west where the party is the strangest; whether it is in the south where it is weakest; or whether it is in the east where it wants to turn its foothold into a more comfortable perch. Modi has been the face of the party’s campaigning and there is really no one else whose visibility is comparable.

Modi is a powerful orator; his speeches are persuasive; and he knows the right button to press. He alludes to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as Shahzada or prince, a reference to the party’s dynastic devolvement of leadership; and he has conjured up images of the opposition parties dancing mujra, a performance by women originating during Mughal rule in India, where the elite class and local rulers frequented venues where courtesans danced.

At other times during his campaigning, he has overturned allegations by his rivals that he intended to amend India’s Constitution by charging them, instead, of trying to bring in religion-based reservations and of appeasement of communal groups.

In interviews, speeches, and other public interactions, Modi often mentions how he is tirelessly devoted to the progress of India and its citizens and often proudly cites his indefatigable spirit. Recently he said that he owed his urja or energy to divine reasons and not because of biological inheritance of those attributes.

Some of these have stoked controversy and ridicule, especially in social media chatter. That probably doesn’t matter. Users of X or similar platforms are not the audience that Modi wants to target. A reference to divine intervention or to someone who is ostensibly doing the task that a supreme being wants him to do are things that can have an effect on his real target audience that is quite different from the ridicule that his “liberal” detractors react with. In fact, the derision that he or others in the BJP target at the so-called “liberal” elite is lapped up by the audience he really targets–the audience whose votes really matter to him.

Can the M-factor Trump the Negatives?

It’s fairly well articulated by legions of analysts, psephologists, and political trend watchers that this time the BJP and its allies face the risk of slipping even in some of the states that are considered their bastion. In Maharashtra, where NDA won 41 of 48 seats in 2019, things are up in the air after two regional parties split down their middle and the dynamics of electoral alliance became complex. In Uttar Pradesh, where it had 62 of the 80 seats, rival Samajwadi Party, which has an edge this time, can eat into its tally. In Karnataka, where it has 25 out of 28 seats, many expect it to lose because the incumbent Congress state government could sway voters’ decisions. Likewise, in states such as West Bengal, the BJP’s tally could come down from 18 seats that it won in 2019 of the state’s total of 42.

Number crunching can show that if the BJP loses in these states, it could be difficult for it to offset those losses with gains from other states where it is not strong, for example in the south.

Hence, most political journalists and analysts say when the results come out on June 4, the BJP and its allies could get a majority (that is, 272 seats or more) but not as many as the 353 that they had won in 2019.

Yet there could be another thing that could matter: the M-factor. Many believe Modi’s popularity has dipped. Some of those who think so look at social media numbers such as how many people watch YouTube videos of his rallies (the numbers are lower than what they were five years ago).

Those are the wrong numbers to look at. The BJP’s electoral fight is asymmetrical to its rivals. Modi fights the elections as if they were presidential elections. When he campaigns he doesn’t campaign for his party’s candidate in a constituency. His message to voters is clear: By voting for the BJP candidate in your constituency you are voting for me; and if you believe in me, vote for the BJP.

With no comparable personality or prime ministerial candidate, the BJP’s rivals are unable to match Modi’s format of campaigning. The INDI alliance of multiple opposition parties has the Congress’ Mallikarjun Kharge as its leader but does he have any brand recall among voters that is even comparable to Modi? Rahul Gandhi is seen as the face of Congress and the opposition’s campaign. A comparison of his popularity with Modi’s would be superfluous.

The question, therefore, is that when the results are out on 4 June, will Modi’s magic cast its spell on the numbers that the BJP and its allies finally get? We’ll know soon.

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Naveen Patnaik Inspired Me To Join Politics: VK Pandian

By LokMarg 8th February 2024

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s close aide VK Pandian said that he was inspired by the Chief Minister to join politics.

“I decided because I was inspired by the Chief Minister, the way he was into public service. And it was not a grand plan or something for me to enter,” Pandian said in a free-wheeling conversation with ANI.

The former civil servant shared that his decision to join politics was completely unplanned and his batch-mates might have laughed when they found out that he had resigned from service and joined a political party.

“I would say that one year back if you had asked me, “Are you going to join politics?” I would have firmly said a ‘no’. My batch-mates will laugh if they know that I have resigned and I have joined a party because it was not in my plan at all,” Pandian said.

The ex-bureaucrat said that he noticed the love and affection of people while on a tour of the districts in Odisha, a year ago and that is when he thought he needs to go beyond the limits of “bureaucratic rules” while reaching out to the people.

“Eight, nine months back, I started touring the districts. And I saw the love and affection of people. It was very humbling. I thought that I should not be bound by bureaucratic rules in reaching out to the people. And that is the only reason why I resigned and joined, inspired by the Chief Minister. But I had no plans whatsoever to join politics. No plans,” Pandian said.

Sharing more about his career-altering tour, the former bureaucrat said that he travelled to all 30 districts of the State as part of reaching out to the people when the footfall at the chief minister’s grievance cell fell post-pandemic.

“I have always travelled with the Chief Minister. This time I travelled on my own to all 30 districts, 146-147 constituencies. We took this exercise because, after COVID, the footfall in the chief minister’s grievance cell had reduced. We had closed the Chief Minister’s grievance cell for two years because of Covid. After that it never picked up. People had stopped coming. There was very less footfall in the grievance cell. So the chief minister decided, why don’t we reach out? This is the first time in a state, in any state, the Chief Minister’s office went and did grievance in a decentralized manner, in constituencies, in blocks,” he shared.

Pandian said that on that tour he committed to people to solve their problems in a stipulated time and all the timelines were met “magically”.

“I committed to people that your problem, this problem will be solved in 10 days, this problem will be solved in 15 days, this problem will be solved in one month, the system rose to that occasion and with the Honourable Chief Minister’s guidance, whatever timelines we had set, it was all being met. It was completely magical. We had thousands of petitions, all transparent way, it has been disposed of,” the former civil servant said.

Pandian said his “inner call” to join politics came when he met those people that he realised the “strong connect” with them. He said he came to understand that he would not be able to reach out to them if he remains as continues to stay in the bureaucracy.

“So when I went to the people, when I met them, I realized that there is a strong connect with people. And I thought being a bureaucrat, I won’t be able to reach out to them. I have to get out of bureaucracy. It was an inner call,” he shared.

Speaking about being inspired by the Chief Minister he said that he has noticed the way Patnaik handles various situations and how he reacts to criticism throughout the decades which has moved him.

“I think one gets inspired being with him for more than a decade. You are working so closely with him. You get to see how he reacts to situations, how he reacts to criticism. So you get inspired by him. Perhaps something of him has rubbed in me. But you know he has a number of years of experience,” he said.

Pandian said that when he joined the bureaucracy, he was allotted Punjab cadre initially in the year 2000 but after the Super Cyclone he decided to go to Odisha instead because Naveen Patnaik had taken over as the Chief Minister.

“I got Punjab cadre initially in 2000. And in 1999, Super Cyclone had hit Odisha very badly. Odisha was in a very bad shape. So there was a dilemma of which cadre I should move. So I decided to go to Odisha because Mr Naveen Patnaik had taken over as Chief Minister of Odisha. And the director of our academy said that go to Odisha, you will get great chance to work. And there is an honest person who has become Chief Minister. So you will get great scope to work. So, that’s how I came to Odisha,” he said.

Speaking about his first impression of Naveen Patnaik, Pandian said that he did not fit the stereotype of a political person.

“Whatever stereotype one has about a political leader, he was completely unlike. Very warm, very down to earth, very humble and had an eye for good work. He had come and he immediately appreciated me for 2-3 things. Which I thought was very nice of him to tell to such a junior officer,” Pandian said. (ANI)

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Fishing In The Tribal Talent Pool

By Kunal Bose 4th February 2023

In a way the hosting of Men’s World Cup Hockey 2023 at two centres in Odisha – the capital city Bhubaneswar and Rourkela – is paying homage to the genius of tribals who in spite of being immiserated over the centuries, including their being driven away from the mainland to the jungle fastness. When the enlightened Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik named the newly built world’s largest hockey stadium with seating capacity of over 20,000 in the steel city Rourkela after the legendary tribal leader Birsa Munda, it was seen as an attempt to acknowledge the grave wrongs done to the children of Indus Valley civilisation and at the same time pay tributes to the indomitable spirit of adivasis to overcome all odds.

The folk hero Birsa Munda (born November 1875) did not live even 25 years, killed as he was while imprisoned by the British. Come to any place where adivasis are found in large numbers, Birsa is principally remembered for his clarion call “let the kingdom of the Queen be ended and our kingdom established” and his phenomenal work in the short time available to him for revival of tribal culture, then under colonial rule facing onslaught from Christian missionaries and others. A rightly deserved tribute demanded by adivasi history in the form of dedicating the Rourkela stadium to memories of Birsa Munda apart, the stadium naming after the great warrior-reformer comes as recognition of the genius of tribals, who though lacking in proper hockey gear mastered the art of the game to the extent of making sterling contribution to India’s global ranking in the sport when competition is becoming increasingly stiffer. Come to an adivasi village, you will find boys and girls enthusiastically playing the game on an uneven surface with makeshift sticks and two bamboo poles on either side of the field standing as the goalpost.

Eminent scholar Gopalkrishna Gandhi has done a major service at the point of the country hosting the World Cup, the extraordinary story of Jaipal Singh Munda, born 120 years ago to a cattle-herding family in what is now Jharkhand. Missionaries were early to recognise Jaipal’s scholarliness as also his skills in weaving magic with the hockey stick to see him through St. Paul’s school in Ranchi and then ensure his admission to the prestigious St. John’s College in Oxford. There as he expectedly did well in studies, Jaipal distinguished himself as the first Indian Oxford hockey blue. That someone of his talent and intellect would make to the charmed Indian Civil Service (ICS) was taken for granted. But what at that time took everyone, especially the British by surprise was his unequivocal decision to quit the vaunted service when India Office refused to grant him leave to enable him to lead the Indian hockey team at 1928 Olympics. For the record, under his captaincy, India won its first gold medal at Amsterdam Olympics.

As if the decision to give up the gilded career of ICS was not audacious enough, Jaipal plunged into politics headlong on his return to India. He became president of Adivasi Mahasabha in 1939 and later on he was elected to the Constituent Assembly where in a historic speech he encapsulated the long unending sufferings of adivasis saying: “If there is any group of Indian people that has been shabbily treated, it is my people. They have been disgracefully treated, neglected for the last 6,000 years. The history of the Indus Valley civilisation, a child of which I am, shows quite clearly that it is the newcomers – most of you here are intruders as far as I am concerned – it is the newcomers who have driven away my people from the Indus Valley to the jungle fastness…”

ALSO READ: Breaking Bread With Tribals –Around A Sublime Fire

Naveen Patnaik’s empathy for tribals is widely known, as it should be. After all, in the coastal state the share of scheduled tribes, according to the 2011 census, in the state population is a high close to 23 per cent. An admirer of hockey, having also played the game in his school days, Patnaik has emerged as the leading patron of the sport in the country, which like so many other sports was crying for state and corporate support. Remember, the latter comes easily on board when the state becomes a passionate promoter like Odisha is for hockey. Perhaps this would not have been the case without Patnaik at the helm. For the development of the sport requiring heavy investment in supporting players, both female and male with the required talent and infrastructure building, Patnaik not only opened the state purse quite liberally, but he also prevailed upon corporates such as Tata Group to support the national cause of hockey. The trail that Jaipal blazed many decades ago remains an inspiration for adivasi boys and girls, particularly from Jharkhand and Odisha to make it to the national team. What they badly needed to excel in the sport is a supporting system, which, thankfully, Patnaik has provided.

Take Dilip Tirkey, who hails from Odisha’s Sundargarh district and has the distinction to lead India in as many as three Olympics and an identical number of World Cup and Asian Games. Unlike in the past when politicians such as Sharad Pawar, Priya Ranjan Das Munshi and Praful Patel would head various sports bodies and make a mess of such assignments because of their poor knowledge of the games and needs of players. In a refreshing change, however, the highly financially rich Cricket Control Board of India is now chaired by Roger Binny, a former Test cricketer (even while important offices of secretary and vice president are headed by non-professional Jay Shah and Rajeev Shukla) and Hockey India by Dilip Tirkey. Think of the big reforms that happened in Indian cricket, including woman participation in that when Sourav Ganguly was president of BCCI.

It will be apt to remember here what Tirkey recently said about his one encounter with the present Odisha chief minister. “In 2003, I got an opportunity to sit next to the chief minister. I used that opportunity to tell him that an artificial turf in Bhubaneswar would be of great help. He thought about it for two minutes and told me to give a proposal in writing. My thinking wasn’t big. I was looking at a ground for us to train. But clearly his vision was different. He said it should be one of the best stadiums in the country. And here we are 20 years later, with world class facilities.” Give us a few more chief ministers with Naveen Patnaik kind of vision for India to emerge as one of the world’s leading sporting nations.

Jaipal Singh and Dilip Tirkey apart, adivasis through decades have proved to be achievers of great fame in hockey. Watchers of the game will remember the achievements of Michael Kindo, Lazarus Barla, Birendra Larka and Prabodh Tirkey. The recently concluded World Cup saw maiden participation of the 24-year old tribal Nilam Xess from village Kadobahal on the outskirts of Rourkela. Why only men, adivasi girls like Nikki Pradhan, Savitri Purty and Sunita Lakra would spell magic moves – take flight with the ball in attack or defend with clean tackling to avoid conceding penalty corners – to earn success for the Indian team.

Many years ago when Imran Khan was still the captain of Pakistani cricket team he wondered why India, which shares borders with its neighbour in the north and has a large population of well-built tribals was not able to produce world class fast bowlers like his country. He said he would take the trouble to visit tribal regions of Pakistan to identify well-built young boys who could become good fast bowlers with training. This is an advice worth pursuing by us.

Why Business Houses Are Betting Big on Odisha

By Kunal Bose 15th December 2022

It could not be in anybody’s imagination that West Bengal will ever be challenged on its claim as the gateway to the east and south east Asia. But much to a combination of surprise and shock to the powers that be in West Bengal, this is precisely what happened at the recent ‘Make in Odisha Conclave 2022.’ At the hugely successful meeting inviting investments, chief minister (CM) Naveen Patnaik, armed with two major all-season deep draught sea ports and a few smaller ones plus a robust road infrastructure projected Odisha as the preferred centre for manufacturing and trade in goods and services with other Indian states and beyond extending to “east and southeast Asia.” Come winter, many Indian states will be hosting similar investor meetings to be unfailingly marked by announcements of huge investments, much of that to remain unrealised though.

As it would happen, two marquee projects in West Bengal – a highly affordable small car named Nano by Tata Motors and a 10 million tonne steel plant by JSW Group – that attracted global attention and launched with great fanfare were abandoned. Nano project was a victim of Trinamool Congress’s unrelenting campaign, degenerating into obstructions and violence. JSW gave up plans for making steel in West Bengal because the two neighbouring iron ore owning states were not inclined to make the raw material available for value addition outside. This is how sub-nationalism works. Earlier, compelled to call it a day for making Nano car at Singur in West Bengal, Ratan Tata told the Press: “If somebody puts a gun to my head, you would either have to remove the gun or pull the trigger. I would not move my head. I think Ms Mamata Banerjee pulled the trigger.”

What was West Bengal’s loss proved to be a major gain for Sanand in Gujarat where over 1,100 acres, including a park for vendors, Tata Motors is making new generation cars, including EVs. In her desperation to make it to Writers Building – the seat of power has since moved to Nabanna – she overlooked the possibility of all the industrial investment that could have followed in case Tatas Singur project had taken off. Jobs created in vendor units are many times more than direct employment generated in the mother car assembly plant.

What a loss Singur was for Bengal which remains desperate to break the drought in new jobs in industry. Ratan Tata does not hide the fact that his respect for the affable, erudite and honest CM of the day Buddhhadeb Bhattacharjee was one principal reason for him to commit Singur investment. Yes as the country is seeing, major investment commitments in Odisha from major groups such as ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India, Vedanta and JSW Steel are happening because of its emergence as an “industry friendly destination” under the urbane leadership of Naveen Patnaik, chief minister since 2000.

It is, however, not that Odisha had not had its share of problems relating to land acquisition to accommodate very large industrial ventures. The South Korean steel major Posco, which wanted to build this country’s largest single location steel plant in that eastern state with freshly invented technology had to beat a retreat in the face of agitation against land acquisition and also mines linkages issue. Some others too experienced the same kind of pain as Posco. All this happened when Patnaik was in charge of the state. The challenge for him was to quickly identify the reasons for resistance to part with land by Adivasis and others, often with support from outside agencies.

Adivasis have owned the land sought for building industries since time immemorial. The people who want their land are outsiders and the Adivasis are not to be blamed if they stay suspicious about them. What certainly was not appreciated by Adivasi leadership was the kind of hard bargain industry groups would drive on compensation for land and total rehabilitation package. Negotiations would break down leading to agitations against the outsiders. There would be incidences of violence and police interventions. Projects that were to usher in industrialisation to strike a balance between the economy’s farm and industry sectors would either be stalled or abandoned as was the case with Posco.

ALSO READ: Naveen Patnaik – The Accidental Chief Minister

Odisha has seen all that, ArcelorMittal sans its now Japanese partner in its first attempted outing in the mineral rich coastal state drew a blank and Tata Steel had to weather many a protest over land acquisition before it could start building a 3 million tonne (mt) mill at Kalinganagar in Odisha. Now the facility is being expanded to 8 mt from where capacity is to be further doubled in course of time. Peace and local communities’ favourable disposition to industrial development, besides consideration of raw materials availability and logistical advantage are prevailing upon Tata Steel CEO & managing director TV Narendran to double down on Odisha in particular for Group capacity expansion to over 40 mt.

A few years ago it acquired a 5.6 mt mill at Dhenkanal under the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code as a stressed asset and more recently the government owned Neelachal Ispat, which is to become a robust 10 mt unit from a doddering 1 mt. But why has such a large section of corporate India from Lakshmi Mittal to Sajjan Jindal to Anil Agarwal to Kumar Mangalam Birla to Narendran is of late seeking a place in the sun of Odisha? Resources under Odisha’s earth have always been there. But the urgency to extract all that for local processing and value addition is felt more recently. What is the trigger for this change in corporate attitude to Odisha?

Self-introspection and deliberations with stakeholders, including the Adivasis and industry officials convinced Patnaik that the only way to cut the Gordian knot for acquiring large parcels of land for building steel plants and aluminium smelters is to convince land owning families that industrialisation will create for them many economic opportunities, besides fair compensation for parting with land and decent rehabilitation. At the same time, his message to industrialists was simple: be generous in compensating land givers and invest in comprehensive betterment of communities around factory areas. Tata Steel’s CSR (corporate social responsibility) work covering education, health, supply of clean water and skills development has set the benchmark for others.

For all this to happen, Patnaik had to conduct interlocution patiently and silently over a long time, without seeking any credit for the result unlike some of his counterparts in other states. That is not all. As we learnt at the conclave, the CM has made it a routine to check with investors in the state if there are uncalled for delays in delivery of promised services. Officers found to be slothful and corrupt are not spared at the instance of Patnaik.

In any case, by way of course correction following unsavoury experiences in acquiring land during 2004 to 2008, the principal sufferers being Posco and Tata Steel, which, however, didn’t waver from its goal of building the mill at Kalinganagar, the state government now boasts of having at its disposal around 160,000 acres of industry-ready land. Principal Secretary of industries department Hemant Sarin says the government’s “pro-people resettlement and rehabilitation policy” and development that has come in places such as Kalinganagar and Paradip have encouraged people to part with their land. Besides easy access to land, what investors want is political stability, a favourable industrial policy, quick dispersal of incentives and a pro-active administration facilitating seamless project implementation.

No wonder more than one industry captain was in agreement with Patnaik that “Odisha is destined to become a trillion-dollar economy in the near future.” What is encouraging is that investment intent received at the conclave at ₹10,48,830 crore far exceeded the state’s expectation by a long margin. All eastern states have a major unemployment problem and Odisha is no exception. An industry department official says that the announced investments going beyond minerals and metals into “22 diversified sectors including petrochemicals” should create well over 10 million direct and indirect employment.

As major industry groups made large investment commitments at the investor meet, Patnaik used the occasion to underline the importance of creation of large number of small and medium units (SMUs) in the downstream of metal producing units. At the conclave itself, he along with Jindal Stainless managing director Abhyuday Jindal virtually laid the foundation of an industrial park where using stainless steel from the mother plant at Jajpur, potentially about 100 SMUs will fabricate a host of industrial, architectural, kitchenware and lifestyle goods. In the meantime, by this financial year ending March 2023, Jindal Stainless melt capacity will be up to 2.1 mt from 1.1 mt, to figure among the world’s largest single location special steel mills, according to Jindal.

The proposed park to be built in two phases over six years will need an investment of over ₹1,500 crore. How does an industrial park of this kind work? Downstream factories get the metal from the mother unit directly. Their workers are trained and products mostly cobranded by the mother unit. The park also has the benefit of a good infrastructure and efficient logistics, thanks to promoter mother industry intervention. Patnaik also wants NALCO and Vedanta Group to commission their aluminium parks as quickly as possible.

Acutely aware that large-scale industrialisation will leave an adverse impact on the climate because of the use of energy based on fossil fuels, principally coal, Patnaik want industries, specially the big ones to create sustainable energy production capacity. Responding to the call and also in its pursuit of zero emission target by 2050, Jindal Stainless is partnering with ReNew Power to build 300 MW capacity using the wind-solar hybrid route. This energy will be used to power its new stainless steel melt capacity to soon come on stream. In fact many other companies – standalone energy groups and manufacturing units – are readying plans to produce sustainable clean energy in Odisha blessed hugely with sun and wind.

Not only through mines development and manufacturing industry, Patnaik is also to seek redemption for his state by way of building high class educational institutions and hospitals to attract students and patients from all over the country. IT and ITES sectors are growing at a rapid clip. The state is now inviting investment in food processing, textiles, pharma, chemicals and biotechnology. Odisha economy is, however, principally dependent on agriculture. The challenges of the farm sector will be the subject of a separate article.

The Accidental Chief Minister

By Kunal Bose 19th November 2022

Who is this Naveen Patnaik? An accidental politician thrust into the office of chief minister of Orissa (since renamed Odisha) to fill a vacuum created by the demise of Biju Patnaik, a larger than life man seen as the one who dreamed of a modern industrial state or one by choice who believed that nothing of substance would happen to the state unless the malady of corruption was rooted out and the administration was rid of slothfulness? Patnaik had occasions to say that he would have loved to spend his life as a writer – incidentally, his elder sister New York-based Gita Mehta has to her credit books such as A River Sutra, Karma Cola and Snakes and Ladders: Glimpses of Modern India – but then “you find me in this role.”

Three years after founding the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), Patnaik first became chief minister of Orissa in 2000 and has won all the five Assembly elections with impressive margins to remain the country’s longest serving state government head with a kind of record that is envy of every other CM. What distinguishes Patnaik is his relentless campaign against corruption. He remains ruthless in ridding ministers and bureaucrats found indulging in making deals at the cost of the state. This crusading zeal sadly missing among most present day politicians is one of the two considerations of investors; the other is making the bureaucracy energetic enough not to sit back on investment proposals, for fancying Odisha.

A corruption free (at least to the extent that investors are not complaining about any favours they might be giving for work to be done) administration is never enough to attract investment. Among the other more compelling requirements are the quality of infrastructure, raw materials availability and supply of skilled manpower. The credit goes entirely to Biju Patnaik, the architect of a modern industrialising Odisha, that the state owns all-season, deep-draft Paradip Port, which last financial year handled a record cargo volume of 116.13 million tonnes. The big risk taker and visionary that he was, Biju Patanaik brushed aside the Centre’s objection to finance Paradip Port project and mobilised the resources on his own to give shape to his vision. The port was commissioned in March 1966, giving the state crying for industrialisation, a major break in infrastructure and logistics. Odisha saw commissioning of another major all-season, deep-draft, multi-user port when Tata Steel in equal partnership with engineering behemoth Larsen & Toubro commissioned the Dhamra Port at Bhadrok district in May 2011.

An example of the growing pull of Odisha among big ticket investors was the Adani Group taking over the port in May 2014 and now working on an ambitious plan to speedily ramp up cargo handling capacity to 300 million tonnes in phases. The state has several other minor ports, including one at Gopalpur. This is as it should be since the state has a coastline of around 450 kms. Paradip Port is the reason that in an adjacent area Indian Oil Corporation built a 15 million tonne refinery at an investment of ₹34,555 crore.

A senior Bhubaneswar based editor of an Odia daily says: “Biju Babu used to say prosperity will remain elusive unless we have industries. In pursuit of industrialisation, he wanted his bureaucrats to stop indulging in writing long notes. Instead, he wanted them to become agents of change, particularly in creating an investor friendly environment. Not only has Naveen acquired that trait of his father, but he has gone a step forward in demanding of them to deliver results without anyone pointing a finger at them. Big man Biju Babu was forgiving in many ways. Naveen has zero tolerance for corruption and also for incompetence. If you ask me I will say Naveen’s approach to administration has brought a breath of fresh air in national politics.”

Unlike many opposition leaders, including West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Naveen hasn’t so far betrayed any national ambition. His focus remains to place Odisha among the country’s highly industrialised states, based largely on its rich mineral resources. No doubt, Naveen is succeeding in reaching that goal. He has also stood out among opposition stalwarts in another way. Being a believer in the country’s federal system, he doesn’t think it proper to go out of the way to criticise either prime minister Narendra Modi or the union government. That way he commands the respect of people at large. Investors in particular don’t want to be caught in the cross fire of centre-state quarrels. His clear instruction to his ministers and senior bureaucrats is that in case they have a problem with the centre, then they should make all efforts to resolve it through discussion instead of making it public at the outset.

Naveen expectedly campaigned hard during the 2019 assembly elections that coincided with the Lok Sabha poll crisscrossing the state. As has now become the norm in all opposition run states, it is on the strength of popularity of the chief minister that candidates of ruling party BJD secures votes. In the last elections, BJD won 112 of 147 seats, albeit down five seats over last time. What distinguished Naveen’s campaign was that he never foul-mouthed Modi. He is too civilised to come down to that level. Critics will say Naveen’s realpolitik is based on practical consideration and it has got nothing to do with ideology or principles. Whatever it is, this honourable disposition of the chief minister may be the reason why central clearances for projects relating to Odisha generally come through in time.

Ports are one component of infrastructure. But Odisha being India’s most minerals rich state, ports provide a gateway for exports of iron ore, bauxite (alumina), ferro-alloys, etcetera and also ex-im of several minerals, either not found at all such as nickel or not in sufficient quantities such as metallurgical coal and metals. In the past decade and a half, Odisha has made impressive strides in building multi-lane highways. But what the state urgently needs is much improved railway network and rakes availability. In the past many years, power plants, including the ones captive to industries such as aluminium smelters, ferro-alloys and steel had to do with restricted supply of coal because of rake shortages and production disruptions at coal mines during the monsoon. A feeling prevails in the state that since the railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, a retired Odisha cadre IAS officer, has good appreciation of the state’s requirements of rail services, rapid improvements are to happen. Air connectivity between the capital city Bhubaneswar and the rest of the country continues to improve with more flights being added periodically.

Investors are basically eyeing the state’s rich mineral resources for processing into metals. Tata Steel is here for a very long time as producer of iron ore. But for some years, it is running a steel mill at Kalinganagar, which is being substantially expanded to 8 million tonnes. The Jindal family through JSPL has a large carbon steel plant and through JSL the country’s largest stainless steel unit in Odisha. The largest Jindal family controlled JSW Steel has in the meantime received environmental clearances to set up a greenfield 13.2 million tonne mill at Paradip at an estimated investment of Rs65,000 crore. Now ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel joint venture proposing an investment of over 1 lakh crore to build a 24 million tonne steel mill in Kendrapara district has the promise of a unique venture in terms of size, promising to be the world’s largest single location plant and use of green technology. The chief minister himself has played an important role in bringing the project to Odisha.

The Adani Group has readied investment of Rs57,575 crore to build a 4 million tonne alumina refinery and also a 30 million tonne iron ore project along with commitment to use as much green energy as possible. Anil Agarwal shepherded Vedanta Group, which already has a massive presence in the aluminium chain in Odisha is once again investing Rs25,000 crore for capacity expansion in white metal and ferrochrome. Besides minerals-based industries, the chief minister wants Odisha to become a major destination for small and medium enterprises adding value to locally produced aluminium and steel. National Aluminium Company is soon to commission an aluminium park at Angul where the units will have the benefit of supply of molten metal from the next door NALCO smelter. Like that a park for plastic products will be built. Leave aside industries, the capital city Bhubaneswar, expanding in all directions, is fast emerging as an important hub for education and health, in a way taking the wind out of Kolkata’s sails.

As most of the promised mega, medium and small projects are being implemented, the state though now self-reliant in electricity will have to create new power generation capacity. Being richly endowed in thermal coal, the natural tendency will be to build coal-fired electricity capacity. Mercifully, Patnaik has set his priorities right in inviting investors to derive energy from green sources such as solar, wind and mini and micro hydel units. The sun shines bright on Odisha for most of the year and it is also blessed with a long coastline. Therefore, building solar and wind energy is not a big challenge for the state. The installed power capacity in Odisha in 2021 March end was 8,594 MW out of 382 gigawatts for the country. People caring for the environment will expect Naveen Patnaik to secure sufficient private investment in all forms of green energy so that pollution caused by burning of coal is capped at a certain level.

Odisha Govt Launches Common Credit Portal For Farmers

By LokMarg 26th October 2022

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Wednesday launched a common credit portal SAFAL’ (Simplified Application for Agricultural Loans) for the welfare of farmers.

The application can revolutionize credit provisions for farmers and agri-entrepreneurs, he said.

The facility will enable farmers and agri-entrepreneurs to access more than 300 term loan products of over 40 banks, the chief minister said while launching the portal.

Expressing delight over the launch of the portal, the CM said that the application is a one-stop solution for farmers and agri-entrepreneurs to avail formal sector credit from Public and Private sector banks, Regional Rural Banks, State Cooperative Banks, and Small Finance Banks.

With this facility, the CM said, farmers and Agri entrepreneurs will have access to more than 300 term loan products being offered by 40 plus partner banks.

Patnaik said that SAFAL will also provide the government with complete visibility of demand and disbursal of formal credit across states and ensure schemes are designed in a data-backed manner.

“It will ease the loan application process benefiting both the farmers and banks significantly. The portal will also reduce information asymmetry by sending farmers real-time notifications at every stage of their loan application,” he assured.

He hoped that SAFAL would be a facilitator of credit to spur the agriculture and allied sectors in Odisha and increase the economic prowess of farmers in the long run.

Earlier, he said that farmers are the backbone of our economy, and agriculture is the largest employer in the state in addition to being the key to the socioeconomic development of our people.

He added that his government, therefore, lays special emphasis on the development of the farming sector through various interventions supported by a comprehensive and inclusive state agricultural policy with the government taking strides in increasing the income of farmers.

Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari appreciated the CM’s vision for the empowerment of farmers’ inclusion in the economic process.

Speaking on the occasion, Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment Minister Rajendra Pratap Swain outlined the steps taken by his department for economic development and the welfare of farmers.

Agriculture Production Commissioner-cum-ACS Sanjeev Chopra highlighted the achievement of Odisha in the agriculture sector. (ANI)