A Proposal for Twelve Zonal Divisions in Orissa

For infrastructure development like road, bridges, railway, region with larger area with lower population like KBK needs more investment compared to district with smaller area with higher population, whereas district with smaller area with higher population like Cuttack, Balasore, Berhampur etc needs more budget in per capital investment such as poverty eradication, number teachers and classroom, number of doctors etc. compared to low population density region. This anomaly has not been well addressed by the Government properly for which some regions are doing better but other regions like KBK, Kandhamal are struggling in development.

To bring uniform development in Orissa there should not be division based on South, West and Central regions as it is more city centric development. South, Western, etc regions are more biased in favour of particular towns rather than for their respective interior regions.

On the other hand regional concept defined by Orissa state Government is sometime negatively impacting to divide the state regionally rather than bringing uniform development in Orissa.

Present regional divisional centers do not also address the local accessibility properly. For example distance between Berhampur and Bhubaneswar is merely 170 km and can be reached in few hours by train and an excellent national highway. But people of Malkangir, Koraput and Nabarangpur face more difficulty to reach Berhampur (which is more than 300 km) than people of Berhampur face to reach Bhubaneswar. Similar is the case for the people of Nuapada and Kalahandi to reach Sambalpur than Sambalpur people to reach Bhubaneswar.

To overcome this problem regional concept should be broadened to zonal concept. Unlike earlier Regional Divisional Commissioner (RDC) for South, West, Central etc., Zonal Divisional Commissioner (ZDC) should be introduced favoring geographical location, distance and inaccessibility. Population should be given importance in the block level and not in ZDC level to bring uniform accessibility to every corner of the state. All 13 undivided districts are suitable to have one ZDC, but Cuttack-Bhubaneswar should be combined together to compete in the national level. Rest 11 undivided districts should have one ZDC based on location such that distance between two ZDC should be in 160 - 250 km. In that case Balangir, Baripada and Angul might be close to Sambalpur, Balasore and Cuttack respectively, but both Balangir and Baripada represents important region and Angul has industrial importance. Therefore, ZDC should be established in the following towns in priority order.

• State Capital-Bhubaneswar-Cuttack region (Angul, Puri, Balasore, Phulbani, Baripada, Berhampur, Keonjhar, Jajpur, Paradeep all of them are within 250 km)
• Sambalpur (283 km from Cuttack)
• Berhampur (166 km from Bhubaneswar)
• Balasore (180 km from Cuttack)
• Rourkela (180 km from Sambalpur, above 450 km from Bhubaneswar)
• Koraput (above 320 km from Berhampur, 499 km from Bhubaneswar, 220 km from Bhawanipatna)
• Bhawanipatna (430 km from Bhubaneswar, 220 km from Sambalpur, 220 km from Koraput)
• Keonjhargarh (210 km from Cuttack, 190 km from Sambalpur, 170 km from Baripada)
• Phulbani (210 km from Bhubaneswar, 200 km from Berhampur, 220 km from Bhawanipatna, 120 km from Balangir)
• Balangir (120 km from Sambalpur, 100 km from Bhawanipatna, 330 km from Bhubaneswar)
• Baripada (70 km from Balasore, 170 km from Keonjhar, about 240 km from Cuttack)
• Angul (127 km from Cuttack, 150 km from Sambalpur, 180 km from Phulbani)

Note : The above proposal has been prepared by Dr. Digambara Patra (Cordinator , OOD Committee) in association with Prashant K Sahoo & Biswaranjan Jena , ODIA SAMAJA