Bhubaneswar, March 17: A marked shift from agriculture to non-agriculture sector with focus on industries pepped up Odisha's economy, significantly reducing the level of poverty over the past two decades.

"The structural shift is well pronounced in Odisha from agriculture to non-agriculture sectors. The shift continues to exist with same trend during 2011-12 to 2015-16," says Odisha Economic Survey for 2015-16, which was laid in the Assembly today.

"The standard of living in Odisha has improved over the years with the rise in real per capita income (the state's per capita income rose to Rs 24,542 during 2011-12)," says the survey, adding that the per capita income in 2015-16 is expected to register an increase by 4.95 per cent over 2014-15 and 17.22 per cent over 2011-12.

This was also corroborated by the speech of chief minister Naveen Patnaik while concluding the debate on the thanksgiving motion on the governor's address tonight. The Odisha chief minister said the economic situation had further improved with better revenue mobilisation measures.

"We have been able to increase our tax revenue by 17.43 per cent and non-tax revenue receipt by 10.40 per cent," said Naveen.

However, contrary to these claims, The Telegraph had carried a report, "Big on talk, low on rank" yesterday - which referred to a survey conducted by a Bangalore-based think-tank Public Affairs Centre, which showed that Odisha stands 15th among the country's 17 large states in the field of governance.

Citing the report, Congress MLA Anshuman Mohanty, while taking part in the thanksgiving motion, said Odisha stood at the 16th position in the transparency index. The government is yet to appoint a Lokayukta and websites of most of the government department are not updated, he said.

The economic survey states that the standard of living in Odisha has improved over the years with the rise in per capita income. However, the continuing gap in per capita income between India and Odisha continues to be a "matter of concern".

The survey also admitted increase in share of marginal workers in the total workforce having gone up from 33 per cent in 2001 to 39 per cent in 2011.

However, the workers' participation ratio in Odisha has shown signs of improvement in the past three decades.

In the agriculture sector, recurring natural disaster such as cyclones, floods and droughts have led to fluctuations in growth rate and value addition. But despite this, the sector continued to be the biggest employer in Odisha.

On the other hand, the industry sector contributed 39 per cent of average share of Odisha's Gross State Domestic Product between 2011-2012 and 2014-15.

This sector expects to grow at 10.5 per cent in 2015-16 but the growth of the sector is driven by the manufacturing industries.

The services sector overtook Odisha's agriculture sector as the major contributor to the economy. It has an average share of 41 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product between 2011-12 and 2014-15.