I was born in Bidar, the crown tip of Karnataka: with five
rivers flowing through it; the Nanak Jhira, the birth place of Bhai Sahib Singh
of Panj Pyare and with a significantly higher Sikh population compared to rest
of Karnataka, Bidar is called Punjab of Karnataka. There ends the similarity.
Bidar even today is amongst the most backward districts of Karnataka and none
of the development indices (Human, Social, economic, educational &
industrial) are comparable to developed districts of old Mysore region (OMR) of
Karnataka.
Growing up the only constant in our lives and that of
majority of people in North Karnataka was migration; in search of a better
future. I was lucky as in one such village to which my family migrated (and my
extended family has settled down even to this day); the school master noticed
that I was good at math & had a good memory. He pushed my father to migrate
to Bangalore for my education and everything changed after that.
Bangalore was manna to us; it gave us (and all those who
migrated) opportunities which we did not have in our region due to geographical
discrimination of North Karnataka by the powers that be in Bangalore probably
due to the “tyranny of distance and discrimination”.
The question is: has the tyranny of discrimination against
North Karnataka decreased and evanesced in the last 30+ years?
To eschew my own native bias arising out of past experience;
I have tried to adopt modified composite factors of development; analysing
HealthCare delivery, Education facilities, Employability after education,
Employment availability, Industry & investment in infrastructure. I have
steered clear from Human development indices as they take time to change albeit
changes and improvement in quality of life are in place.
For proper assessment of typology of development, it is
important to study not just the quantitative change in the last three decades
in North Karnataka but also the qualitative aspects of development as revealed
by the level of technology utilisation in everyday life by common man, Health
and nutrition, Individual sanitation, Ease of living parameters like access to uninterrupted
electricity, access to good roads and means of safe transportation versus their
compatriots in old Mysore region (OMR).
Healthcare
parameters 1,2,3,4,5,6:
Factors which interested us and which we sampled were:
1 Number
of people who are sick and need HealthCare support 1,2,3,11,12:
In OMR it was 95 to 98 per 1000 while in Northern Karnataka it was 95 to 102 per thousand. The problem area was Yadgir which did not have even a decent secondary centre and sick people had to go all the way to Kalburgi or Raichur even for something as common as assisted delivery in bad obstetric patients which is taken for granted in OMR of Karnataka. Doctors spoken to along with NSSO data of NITI ayog, reported more nutritional issues and geriatric issues in districts of North Karnataka versus reporting of the same from OMR. Almost 90% of people of North Karnataka have to move more than 100 Kms from their homes when anyone in the household requires tertiary care making whole households lose income while in the OMR region the comparative number was 57% 2.
2)
Out
of pocket expenditure 1,9:
OMR being relatively developed the penetration of insurance,
ESI and Public Funded Insurance Programs and other programs are significantly
higher. Bidar, Gulbarga, Raichur, Yadgir, Chitradurga, Bellary, Koppal ,
Karwar, Chikkamagalur, Bijapur have
woefully worse penetration of individual/family insurance and also the
comparative per capita reach of public funded insurance is bad due to ignorance
about the same, among people. Upon sampling in both North Karnataka and OMR we
found that nearly 40 to 60% of patients are in the verge of catastrophic
poverty due to out of pocket healthcare expenses in the above mentioned districts
of North Karnataka verses their compatriots in OMR. As per survey conducted by
us with doctors and hospitals we found that, Individual/Family private insurance
penetration was nearly 25% in OMR and nearly 40% in urban areas of Bangalore,
Mysore & Mangalore compared to 0.6% in Yadgir, 1% in Koppal to 3% in
Bellary. Need we say more?
3)
State
expenditure in HealthCare 1,2,4,9:
Karnataka government at 3.8% of its aggregate expenditure
spends the least for healthcare among all southern states of India. Even among
this, the amount spent for healthcare facilities in the three districts of
Bangalore, Mysore and Mangalore exceeds the combined expenditure in the rest of
districts of the state. All the state owned tertiary centres in the state are
concentrated in these three districts. Recent Addition of Jayadeva Hospital
branches in Raichur are just ornamental as doctors and specialist staffs visit
once a month to such centres. State needs to own up responsibility and open
centres of excellence in healthcare in the districts parched for healthcare.
4)
Percentage
of girls married before 18 yeras of age 4, 10:
We found this as a great marker of overall quality of life
index. Families with access to remunerative employment, education &
insurance invariably married their girl children late after educating them
while those families which are poor looked at the girl child as a burden and
married them early. Girls married early give birth to unhealthy kids; the family
stayed less educated and poor with poor access to health services and
government programs compared to girls married at the right age.
You will be surprised to know that nearly 35% of girls were
married before they reach the age of 18 in all districts of North Karnataka. In
OMR the same was between 6 (Mangalore & Bangalore urban) to 21% in
different districts except Chamarajanagar which was 35%. This index alone is
conclusive evidence of the tyranny of discrimination and continuous neglect
which North Karnataka has faced till now.
Education 17:
Both the quality and number of educational institutions
especially state owned institutions in North Karnataka are bad as compared to
that in OMR. Bangalore with its IIM, IISc and various centres of excellence in
education attracts talent and retains them as compared to say a Bijapur or
Gulbarga. Government on its part has never made any attempt to bridge the gap
in education resources for the people of North Karnataka proving the adage
“tyranny of discrimination”.
Employment after
Education 17:
In a survey conducted among private industry in Bangalore it
was evident that a student who has studied in educational institutions of OMR
has higher chances of employment as compared to someone who has studied in districts
like Koppal, Bidar etc., with equivalent degree. Employment in Semiskilled
& unskilled blue collar jobs does not subscribe to this discrimination.
Employment
opportunities in North Karnataka 17:
In a survey conducted among family members, extended family members,
their friends and families which included 316 youth, we found that 276
youngsters had moved to Bangalore for job, 6 to Mysore, 2 to Belgavi, 7 went
abroad for further education, 8 to Mumbai, 13 to Chennai, 4 to Delhi to study
for IAS. None of the youngsters stayed back in their native districts. This is
a stark commentary on the state of affairs as far as employment opportunities
are concerned. That places like Hubli, Belgavi themselves are suffering should
be a wakeup call for the powers at Bangalore.
Industry and
Investment 13,14,15,16,19,20,23,24:
Since this heading alone requires an expansive treatment and
is beyond the scope of this article, I will try to summarise this heading in
Industrial output. All the districts of North Karnataka give less than 1% of industrial
output of OMR’s industrial output. Bangalore alone generates nearly 90 times
the output of all north districts combined. This includes state and national
PSU sector & private enterprises. IT & BT which have ministries under
the government have near zero output outside of OMR. All the districts of North
Karnataka can be classified as industrially backward. Some like Koppal, Yadgir
and Bidar do not have any industry at all. State government appears least
concerned about industrialisation of these areas.
Asset Index 7,
8:
As a proxy for wealth, we constructed an asset index using
information about household characteristics including source of lighting,
number of lights in a household, source of energy for cooking, source of
drinking water and type of latrine along with multidimensional poverty
indicators (MPI) taken from NSSO poverty survey 18.
Applying this Asset index to households across Karnataka we
found that OMR households are nearly 3 times asset rich with better MPI data
indicating better per capita expenditure, higher protein + calorie consumption
and higher education levels compared to households of North Karnataka 17.
Some very broad
sociodemographic and economic statistics of importance were considered too. We
noted that there is significant 12 per cent increase in monthly per capita
consumption expenditures of the households over the last 10 years even in
districts of North Karnataka. There is also a big improvement in the literacy
rates with a massive decline in the percentage of illiterate population from 42
per cent to 31.5 per cent over the last 10 years. Directly from a health
viewpoint, it is also important to note that significantly more number of
households gained access to latrines over this decade in India. This number is
has risen sharply after 2014 when the Swachch Bharat Abhiyaan (Clean India
Mission) was launched nationally. The other major development in this time
frame has been the rapid expansion of health insurance in the country;
hopefully Ayushman Bharat changes the dire state of healthcare in districts of
North Karnataka. One common issue is lack of information. Many people are not
aware of their coverage and how to benefit from insurance 9, 11, 12.
Whilst as noted above,
good quantitative changes did take place in the last few decades in North
Karnataka, however; when we did the typological assessment of development, we
found OMR region is far ahead of districts of North Karnataka in factors like;
use of technology in everyday life by common man, Health and nutrition,
Individual sanitation, Ease of living parameters like access to uninterrupted
electricity, access to good roads and means of safe transportation. These
factors are easy to note and were picked up by common citizens too which has
led to feeling of vexed indignation and resentment bordering rancour against
the state government in them 17, 22.
The other most important issue which we noticed was the
concentration of government departments, central and state PSUs in OMR.
Starting from agriculture to industry to water & sanitation all are
situated in Bangalore or OMR. The bureaucrats needs to be posted in areas where
they are needed, what is the point of Karnataka water development board being
situated in Bangalore when water is needed in arid areas of North Karnataka or
why should Karnataka industry development board be in Bangalore and not
relocated to say Koppal19 where industry needs to be developed?
99.9% of government offices, boards & PSUs are in OMR 21.
With the above analysis of available data, I conclude that North
Karnataka faces severe discrimination even today after 30+ years of my family
moving out of Bidar to Bangalore. The situation needs to be addressed
immediately to stop further deterioration and stop an acrimonious battle for a
separate state.
Dear politicians and
bureaucrats of Karnataka, we are not interested in your centralised handout and
welfare model distilled out of Vidhana soudha, what we want is better
educational institutions, better jobs and increased industrial production at
par with OMR in North Karnataka. We do not want to migrate to Bangalore or
Mysore or Mangalore in search of opportunities, we want better opportunities in
our place. Start by moving the government departments and bureaucrats to
Koppal, Yadgir, Kalburgi, Bidar and other areas in the region where they are
needed, do not keep them around Vidhana Soudha congesting Bangalore.
I pray the central and state
governments to respect our sentiments, to put in extra effort and work to
improve the quality of life of people of North Karnataka because Home is where
heart is.
References:
2)
https://azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/sitepages/pdf/Karnataka-Roadmap-to-Improved-Health-A-Report.pdf
3)
Distance
to the nearest tertiary care centre as reported by government Doctors from
different parts of Karnataka in a survey
6)
http://www.mospi.gov.in/sites/default/files/publication_reports/Manual-Health-Statistics_5june15.pdf
7)
Census
Handbooks of all districts of Karnataka state
10)
https://www.icrw.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/District-level-study-on-Child-Marriage-in-India.pdf
17)
Private
survey done by author and his friends
19)
http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/62948/11/11_chapter%202.pdf Page no 81, number of industrial sheds in
Koppal is 4
24)
http://203.200.22.249:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/12341/1/REGIONAL_DISPARITIES_AND_DEVELOPMENT_IN_INDIA.pdf Regional disparities especially in
Karnataka by Hemalata Rao.
25)
http://www.des.kar.nic.in/docs/Final%20ES_Eng_09.02.2018_MFinal.pdf Economic survey of Karnataka
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