Every election, we hear about smart cities, world-class infrastructure, modern townships and urban transformation.
But let us ask a simple question.
How many villages in Odisha have proper drinking water, reliable internet, functional healthcare facilities and quality schools within easy reach?
The truth is that Odisha’s future will not be decided in Bhubaneswar alone.
It will be decided in thousands of villages that continue to lose their youth every year.
A young person leaves the village because there are no opportunities.
A family moves because education and healthcare are concentrated elsewhere.
A farmer struggles because market access remains limited.
And then we celebrate urban growth while quietly accepting rural decline.
This is not development.
This is migration disguised as development.
For decades, governments have invested heavily in cities while expecting villages to survive on schemes and subsidies. The result is visible across Odisha. Villages are losing their most productive population while urban centres are struggling to absorb the pressure.
What Odisha needs is not merely more smart cities.
It needs smart panchayats.
Every panchayat should have high-speed internet, digital public services, quality schools, skill development centres, primary healthcare facilities, public libraries and spaces for entrepreneurship.
Why should a student travel hundreds of kilometres for opportunities that technology can bring closer to home?
Why should a young entrepreneur be forced to leave the village simply because the ecosystem does not exist there?
Why should development always mean moving away?
If every panchayat becomes a centre of education, innovation, skill development and local enterprise, migration will become a choice rather than a necessity.
The real measure of development is not how many people move to cities.
It is how many people can build a dignified future without being forced to leave their communities.
Odisha has more than enough talent.
The question is whether we have the vision to develop every corner of the state instead of concentrating everything in a few urban pockets.
Perhaps the next debate should not be about building another smart city.
Perhaps it should be about creating a thousand smart panchayats.
