Bhubaneswar, Dec. 21: It’s easier to find a place of worship than a hospital in Odisha.
The 2011 Census figures reveal that the state has 1,33,789 places of worship as compared to 17,873 health care centres. The number of educational intuitions stands at 98,437.
A total of 1.1 per cent buildings in the state are being used as places of worship, 0.8 per cent as schools and colleges and only 0.1 per cent of the buildings are connected to health care.
Puri, as one would expect, has the maximum percentage of worship places with 2 per cent of the buildings in the district devoted to gods and goddesses. Bhadrak and Jagatsinghpur have 1.7 per cent of buildings being used for similar purposes. In terms of numbers, Cuttack has highest number of places of worship at 10,628, followed by Ganjam (9,527) and Puri (8,857).
On the other hand, Deogarh has the least number of worship places at 744, followed by Jharsuguda and Boudh with 1,254 and 1,335, respectively.
Sociologists attribute the bias towards religious institutions to the strong religious feelings among the people. “The natural inclination of the people is towards religion. Influential people in an area donate plots to set up religious structures, but they would hesitate to do the same for a school or a hospital. There is a need to increase their level of awareness about the importance of education and health,” said sociologist Navneeta Rath.
Cuttack has 4,318 educational institutions and 1,313 health care centres while Ganjam has 6,387 educational intuitions and 1,553 health care centres.
Puri has 3,130 schools and colleges and 730 hospitals and clinics.
“There is uneven distribution of schools, especially primary and upper-primary schools. While the Union government has a norm that there should be a primary-level school within a kilometre of every habitation, Odisha only has primary schools within a 3km radius. The state needs to have around two lakh educational institutes for primary and upper-primary-level education,” said educator Abani Baral.
The Census 2011 was conducted in two phases. The first phase house-listing operation was conducted from April 7, 2010, to May 22 May, 2010, followed by the second phase of population enumeration from February 9, 2011, to February 28, 2011.
A total of 73,227 enumerators and 12,440 supervisors conducted the operation in the state.