Why Is Odisha Underrated?

Odisha is consistently ranked among India's most underrated states by people who have spent time there and understand what it has. It is consistently overlooked by people who haven't. This gap — between the perception of the state and its actual substance — is not an accident. It is the product of specific structural factors that are worth understanding.

What Odisha actually has

Odisha is one of India's largest states by area, with a population of over 45 million. It has one of India's longest coastlines — over 480 kilometres along the Bay of Bengal — with ports at Paradip, Dhamra, and Gopalpur that are increasingly significant to India's trade infrastructure. It has substantial natural resource wealth, including large deposits of iron ore, bauxite, chromite, and coal, which have made it the backbone of India's steel industry.

The state is home to some of India's most significant cultural heritage: Puri's Jagannath Temple draws millions of pilgrims annually, the Konark Sun Temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the Odissi classical dance tradition is one of the eight classical dance forms of India. The coastline includes Chilika Lake, Asia's largest brackish water lagoon, and the Bhitarkanika mangroves, one of India's largest mangrove ecosystems.

Bhubaneswar, the capital, has been developing as a technology hub since STPI established its presence there in 1991. The city has KIIT University, IIT Bhubaneswar, IIIT Bhubaneswar, NIT Rourkela, and a growing number of technology companies.

Why it doesn't get credit for this

The narrative gap. States like Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu have invested heavily — through government positioning, industry associations, and the media presence of their major cities — in building a narrative that travels. "Bengaluru is India's Silicon Valley" is a statement that has been repeated enough times that it functions as received wisdom globally. Odisha has not had equivalent narrative investment, which means that its achievements travel less far and its potential is less visible to people making location and investment decisions from a distance.

The association with historical poverty. Parts of Odisha, particularly the KBK region (Kalahandi, Balangir, Koraput), were associated with acute poverty and drought in the 1980s and 1990s. These associations have not fully updated in the national or global consciousness, even as the state has changed significantly. The image that persists in many people's mental models of Odisha is the image from 30 years ago, not the image that reflects current conditions.

Concentration of attention in a few metros. Indian startup and business media concentrates heavily on Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, and Hyderabad. Cities like Bhubaneswar, where genuine economic development is happening, receive a fraction of the coverage that their level of activity would merit in a more distributed media environment. Less coverage means fewer investors, fewer founders, and fewer company decisions that take Odisha seriously as a location.

Lack of a flagship export. Every well-known state has a flagship export — the company, person, or product that most people associate with it and that travels as a signal of what the state produces. Bengaluru has Infosys and Flipkart. Odisha's most prominent exports have historically been in natural resources and heavy industry — important economically, but not the kind of thing that builds a reputation for talent and innovation.

Why the gap is closing

Odisha has been among India's fastest-growing states in recent years, consistently outperforming the national GDP growth rate. The state's ports are becoming more significant to India's trade infrastructure as the country's export ambitions grow. The technology talent base is expanding. The government has been more actively invested in industrial development and startup support than at any previous point.

More Odisha-origin founders and professionals in other cities are beginning to build visible careers, which creates a returning cohort with capital, networks, and the credibility to build something in Odisha rather than just from Odisha.

The underrating is real. It is also, gradually, correcting.