New Delhi, May 14 -- When I was in Balangir in 1998 for a participatory poverty profiling study, I witnessed widespread poverty, distress migration, crisis of water for livelihoods and self-sustenance. Balangir is part of undivided Koraput and is one of the poorest districts in Odisha, despite having rainfall, landholding size, per capita food grain production and availability more than state average.

When I visited Balangir this year after two and half decades, I could see some improvement in infrastructure like roads, government buildings and so on, but the condition of people was largely the same, with reduced rainfall (1,229 / 1,500 mm), less than a quarter area under irrigation, reduced agricultural incomes, distress migration and ...