Less than six decades later, the name Kalahandi has become synonymous with abyssmal poverty and chronic famine-like conditions. Together with the adjoining districts of Bolangir and Koraput, perhaps the three poorest districts in the country, they have come to be known by the cover-all initials `KBK'.

With no tangible change in sight to the endemic problems gripping the three districts, Prime Minister AB Vajpayee has ordered that the emergency feeding programme continue uninterrupted to prevent any starvation deaths.

More significantly, Vajpayee has called for an overall strategy for the development of the region and has directed the Planning Commission to take the responsibility of overseeing the implementation of the long-term development schemes for the KBK districts.

In the last three months,Jaswant Singh, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, has held a series of meetings with Orissa state government officials on a revised Long-term Action Plan (LTAP) spanning from 1998-99 to 2006-2007, to strike at the root of the areas ills: deforestation, soil degradation and drought.

While successive governments have grappled with many long-term and short-term strategies, plans and schemes, what keeps the impoverished people of the KBK area alive is the emergency feeding programme sanctioned by the Prime Minister's Relief fund.

This is not the first long-term plan that the KBK has seen. During the days of PV Narasimha Rao, the Central Government had with much fanfare launched a comprehensive strategy for the undivided Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput areas, subsequently divided into eight smaller districts.

But the plan failed to take-off. According to officials both the expenditure incurred and the performance have been much less than the targets. ``The chief cause for its failure was the lack ofpolitical will. The resources had been approved, the plans drawn up, but the Congress government in the state did not show the will to carry it through'', said Kalahandi MP, BK Deo of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Quite apart from the gravity of the situation in the KBK region, the change in the BJP's fortunes in the state in the 1998 elections and its alliance with the Biju Janata Dal is also providing an impetus to the Centre, to make a difference. ``We want to make a difference to the scenario of despair. The people of the area have voted for the BJP and have a lot of expectations from the BJP'', said Deo.

A central team, including officials from the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Water Resources, which visited the area has given its inputs to speed up both ongoing and proposed irrigation projects as well as soil, water and conservation schemes.

The revised LTAP will have an outlay of around Rs 6,060 crore, covering eleven broad sectors including agriculture, watershed development,afforestation, irrigation, health and drinking water among other priority targets.

Another Rs 88.50 crore has been proposed for the Emergency Feeding Programme which forms the lifeline for about 75,000 indigent persons, mostly the old and infirm, since those who are younger or are in a position to find employment tend to migrate away from the chronically-drought prone area.