Explained: Can Droupadi Murmu help bridge Mayurbhanj's development gap?

Education, healthcare, access to basic facilities are lower than national average

Presidential nominee Droupadi Murmu would be the first person from the tribal community to occupy the post, and only the second woman to be India’s president after Pratibha Patil.  

Women in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, to which she belongs, have multiple gaps on key indicators, shows data from the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), which was conducted between 2019-21.

Women have a literacy rate of 58.6 per cent in the district. This is lower than 69.5 per cent in Odisha, and 71.5 per cent in India overall. It is, however, slightly better than the 58.3 per cent for women from scheduled tribes across the country. A higher proportion of women here have a lower than average body mass index than the value for scheduled tribes overall. It is also worse than both state and national numbers.

Fewer women in the district receive four or more antenatal care (ANC) visits. These are checkups by skilled medical professionals to ensure safe pregnancy for women. Nearly half of the women in the district did not receive the four visits, based on those who had given birth in the last five years. Nearly 78.1 per cent of women in Odisha typically have such visits.
 

“Antenatal care is essential for protecting the health of women and their unborn children.... Through antenatal care, pregnant women can also access micronutrient supplementation, treatment for hypertension to prevent eclampsia, as well as immunisation against tetanus. Antenatal care can also provide HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) testing and medications to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV,” according to an April 2021 note from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

An analysis of household-level data also shows some lagging indicators. Only 16.1 per cent of households in the district have access to clean cooking fuel such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Clean fuel also includes cooking with biogas or electricity. The figure for Odisha is 34.7 per cent. It is 58.6 per cent on an all-India basis.

Households here also have lower electricity connections rate (90.3 per cent) compared to state (96.3 per cent) and national (96.5 per cent) figures. Improved drinking water sources are available only to 80.1 per cent of households here, and toilet facilities only to 68 per cent. Both these numbers are lower than for Odisha and for India overall (see chart 2).

Women in the scheduled tribes have lagged behind on development indicators nationwide. For example, access to internet is significantly lower for the scheduled tribes. Only 20.6 per cent of scheduled tribe women have ever used the internet compared to 33.3 per cent for Indian women overall. Many states in the Northeast, such as Mizoram, do better with 67.6 per cent internet usage for women. Internet usage is also higher for Nagaland (49.9 per cent), Sikkim (76.7 per cent) and Arunachal Pradesh (52.9 per cent).