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The present study examines the productive day’s loss of local communities in the opencast coal mining region of Angul (Talcher) district in Odisha, due to respiratory illness, by using the dose-response function model. The productive day’s loss is estimated in terms of restricted activities or work days lost, due to severe respiratory illness (RI), induced by air pollution. Health diaries are analyzed through the seasonal household survey to predict the likelihood of RI-related sickness (in terms of the restricted days) of the residents of the mining region (due to air pollution). Poisson and negative binomial regression are fitted for the purpose of count data analysis. The regression result confirms that there is a positive and significant relationship between the level of air pollution (respiratory suspended particulate matter (RSPM)/particulate matter less than 10 g/m3(PM10) and RI-related sick days, depicting that a reduction in air pollution level (PM10) may cause a reduction in expected number of RI-related sick days in the coal mining region. Further monetary welfare gain from avoiding the RI-related sick days are estimated for the population of Talcher coal mining area, Odisha

Natural disasters are a recurrent phenomenon in Odisha. Frequent natural disasters not only affect different sectors of the economy but also disturb different aspects of human life. The natural disasters also increase fiscal pressure of the government. Every year, government of Odisha (GoO) spends around 1.3% of GSDP for flood control and irrigation purpose, and 0.44% of GSDP is spent on relief on account of natural calamities. We employ Pooled Mean Group (PMG) to examine the effect of natural disasters such as flood, lightning and fire accidents on per capita real Gross District Domestic Product (GDDP) growth using district-level panel data for 30 districts of Odisha over the period 2001–2011. The findings of the study are as follows. First, PMG estimate confirms that flood is positively related with per capita real GDDP growth which implies that 10% increase in the number of floods at their mean lead to an increase in per capita real GDDP growth by 0.0011% in the long-run. Second, population killed due to lightning has negative impact on the same. The results confirm that 10% increase in population death due to lightning at their mean leads to a decline in the per capita real GDDP growth by 0.0001% in the long-run. Third, further result shows that property lost by fire is negatively correlated with per capita real GDDP growth which implies that property lost by fire accidents increase by 10% at their mean leading to a decline in per capita real GDDP growth by 0.0008% in the long-run. Finally, results also confirm that districts with better financial markets and higher level of literacy, experience higher per capita real GDDP growth in the long-run. In view of these results, the empirical finding concludes that long-term disaster management policy is essential to mitigate the adverse impact of natural disasters on per capita GDDP growth in Odisha.

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This study examines the inclusiveness of poverty reduction among the newly formed states of undivided Andhra Pradesh by looking into the poverty among the different socio-religious groups both in the rural and urban regions during the 2000’s. The major proposition that has highlighted in this study: which socio-religious groups are more poverty ridden in the undivided Andhra Pradesh and its bifurcated states (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana)? The National Sample Survey Organisation unit level data (61st and 68th rounds) on Consumption Expenditure Survey have been used for the analysis. The result reveals that Telangana is having lower poverty level than Andhra Pradesh and records a faster reduction in poverty during 2004–2005 to 2011–2012. Andhra Pradesh constitutes around 70% of the total poor of the undivided Andhra Pradesh. This study found that most of the Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes among the social groups and Muslims among the religious groups are more vulnerable and having higher head count ratio than the state average. Although several welfare programmes and schemes have already been implemented to eradicate poverty and inequality, still it is not effective in the ground level. Based on this argument, our study suggests that the schemes should focus on different sections of the people irrespective of rural and urban sectors in both the recently bifurcated states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. JEL Codes: I 32, D 63, P 25