Land Disputes & Lack of Industry: Can Odisha Jobs Crisis Hurt BJD?

As per the leaked National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) report on jobs data in 2017-18, unemployment in Odisha was at a peak of 7.1 percent, one whole percentage point higher than the national average.

Biju Janata Dal’s Naveen Patnaik, who has held on to the chief minister’s chair for the last 19 years, has been unable to resolve the state’s employment divide, with thousands of youngsters continuing to migrate to neighbouring states like Andhra Pradesh in the search for jobs.

The state government’s high-profile deal with POSCO, the South Korean steel manufacturer, had been billed to be India’s largest FDI deal at the time it was signed in 2005. But the 12 billion USD investment project (52,000 crores) did not eventually see the light of day when after 12 long years of local resistance and regulatory hurdles, the South Korean giant officially withdrew from the state and surrendered the controversial land.

Two years after the 2017 exit, we visit the now desolate site in Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district, and speak to locals about the decade of resistance, the woes of unemployment and the status of their land today. The region votes simultaneously for the next Assembly and Lok Sabha representatives on 29 April, in the fourth phase of the general election.

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