Fractured/Earth

Stay in Odisha for a bit and you will run into a puzzle.

Despite healthy finances, the state is failing to provide basic services to its people. Its schools and hospitals are badly understaffed. Jobs are not easy to find, as a result of which young people are getting disillusioned with education itself. Welfare programmes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme work only on paper.

While the state saw an iron ore boom over the last decade, government’s policies ensured only a handful of people became rich. Most stayed unaffected. Some ended up poorer. During the same period, the state also saw a chit fund boom in which middle- and low-income families lost money.

Despite this streak of state failure, the state’s people continue to be silent.

a wrap of all our #eartotheground reporting from odisha. this is the second wrap — the first was on mizoram.