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Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Assembly assembled on Friday. The Congress and BJD members rose. Slogans followed. Placards went up. Members entered the Well. The Question Hour barely got going before the House was adjourned. And that was the fourth consecutive day of disruption over the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2026. On Thursday, the pattern was much the same. Congress, BJD members entered the Well with placards and slogans; some stood on reporters' tables, while Congress members wore black gowns written over with slogans agaist MMDR . The Deputy Speaker eventually adjourned the House till 4 pm and later till the next sitting. The political theatre has become unmistakable: protest inside the Well, slogans before the Chair, placards and black gowns for the cameras and demands for withdrawal of the law before discussion. There is an almost ironic parallel outside the Assembly. When the Deep Depression is washing away river embankments and raising flood fears across Odisha, a political Deep Depression is washing away the Assembly's scheduled business. Four days. Little substantive debate. No sustained argument-counter-argument on the floor. Instead, direct action: protest, disruption and adjournment. But beneath the noise lies a question that ordinary people deserve to have answered: Is Odisha actually losing ₹1 lakh crore of money it was already earning – or is the figure referring to revenue the State expected to collect in the future after the Supreme Court's 2024 verdict? That distinction changes the entire story. So, amid the weather-induced Deep Depression and the political Deep Depression inside the Assembly, it is time to clear the haze – one fact at a time. The first fact: Odisha's mining revenue did not begin with the 2026 amendment Look at Odisha's mining earnings over time. Before the present controversy, the State was already earning thousands of crores annually from royalties and other mining-related streams. After the 2015 reforms and auction regime, the scale changed dramatically. The supplied revenue series shows the transition clearly. Odisha's mining revenue before DMF: 2010-11 to 2014-15 Financial year Core mining revenue* 2010-11 ₹ 3,330.46 crore 2011-12 ₹ 4,586.64 crore 2012-13 ₹ 5,679.35 crore 2013-14 ₹ 5,519.57 crore 2014-15 ₹ 5,335.05 crore The core mining revenue then was royalty + auction premium. DMF was not yet part of the revenue series during these years. This is important because it establishes the baseline. Odisha was not a State with no mining income waiting for the 2024 Supreme Court judgment to unlock it. It was already earning substantial mineral revenue. Then came the post-2015 transformation Financial year Core mining revenue DMF collection Combined figure thereafter 2015-16 ~₹5,800 cr Transition year ~₹5,800 cr 2016-17 ₹ 5,134.90 cr ₹ 2,193.63 cr ₹ 7,328.53 cr 2017-18 ~₹6,131 cr ~₹2,000 cr ~₹8,131 cr 2018-19 ~₹10,479 cr ~₹2,500 cr ~₹12,979 cr 2019-20 ~₹11,020 cr ~₹2,800 cr ~₹13,820 cr 2020-21 ~₹13,918 cr ~₹3,200 cr ~₹17,118 cr 2021-22 ₹ 44,500 cr ₹ 5,359.12 cr ₹ 49,859.12 cr 2022-23 ~₹38,000 cr ~₹4,500 cr ~₹42,500 cr 2023-24 ~₹44,000 cr ~₹4,600 cr ~₹48,600 cr 2024-25 ~₹45,500 cr ~₹4,300 cr ~₹49,800 cr 2025-26 ₹ 46,710.57 cr ₹ 4,416.53 cr ₹ 51,127.10 cr The latest full-year figure in the supplied data is 2025-26 ; FY 2026-27 is not a completed financial year yet. The point is simple. Odisha's existing mining revenue stream has not disappeared because of the 2026 amendment. Indeed, the Union government says around 90% of mining-sector revenue continues to accrue to the States and that the amendment does not take away existing State-collected taxes. What is Section 9D? Since this has been the heart of the controversy, here is the explaination. The 2026 amendment inserted Section 9D into the MMDR Act. In simple language, the provision prevents a State from independently imposing a fresh tax, cess or other levy on mineral rights or mineral-bearing land unless it complies with conditions or restrictions prescribed by the Centre. The provision also deals with unpaid retrospective levies: amounts that had not been paid or collected before the amendment are treated as invalid, while amounts already recovered are not to be refunded. So, what remains? Royalty remains. Auction premiums remain. DMF collections remain. What changes is the State's ability to create an additional layer of mineral taxation outside the centrally prescribed framework. That is the crucial distinction. The above distrinction and analysis puts the existing revenue position bluntly : the State's historical and current mining earnings are not being deducted from its account by Section 9D. What is affected is the opportunity to collect additional retrospective and future State-level levies. And that brings us to the tom-tomming of headline numbers: Rs1 lakh crore. The legal story did not begin in 2026 — it goes back to 1989 To understand today's Assembly confrontation, one has to go back nearly four decades. In India Cement Ltd. v. State of Tamil Nadu , decided in 1989, the Supreme Court held that royalty was a tax and that a State could not impose a cess on royalty in the manner challenged in that case. The Court relied heavily on the central MMDR framework and Entry 54 of the Union List. That became the central legal reference point for decades. States did not simply surrender. Mineral-rich States continued to enact or defend different forms of levies, while mining companies challenged them in court. That produced another major constitutional battle in State of West Bengal v. Kesoram Industries , decided in 2004. Here the legal picture became more complicated: the Supreme Court held in that case that a State levy on land could be constitutionally valid in the circumstances before it. The judgment itself discussed Entries 49 and 50 of the State List and the relationship with Parliament's powers under Entry 54. The disagreement did not end there. In 2011, in the Mineral Area Development Authority v. Steel Authority of India litigation, the Supreme Court referred the fundamental questions to a nine-judge Constitution Bench. Among the questions was whether royalty was a tax and what limitations Parliament's MMDR legislation imposed on the States' power to tax mineral rights. The dispute therefore travelled from 1989 → 2004 → 2011 → 2024 → 2026 . It is not a dispute born inside the Odisha Assembly this week. Congress, UPA and the Centre: what did the courtroom record show? This is where the political argument becomes particularly interesting. The analysis points to a broad institutional continuity in the Union's approach during the UPA years, including its insistence on the importance of Parliament's role under Entry 54 and concern over separate State mineral levies . A glance shows crystal clearly what had been the UPA-era legal and policy position around the Kesoram and MADA/SAIL litigation. The cleaner comparison is therefore this: Issue Rajiv Gandhi/UPA-era position reflected in the record Modi government / 2024-26 position Central role under Entry 54 Defended the Union's role in mineral regulation and national economic uniformity in 1989 Continued to defend the Union's role State mineral levies Union legal position generally resisted uncoordinated additional mineral taxation by States right from 1989, 2004 to 2011 in SC Opposed unrestricted additional State levies 2011 MADA-SAIL reference Dispute was referred to nine-judge Bench Nine-judge Bench finally decided the issue in 2024 July 2024 judgment — Supreme Court held royalty is not a tax and recognised State taxing powers over mineral rights, subject to constitutional limits After 2024 judgment — Centre pursued review/curative legal routes and then enacted 2026 amendment 2026 Section 9D — Fresh State levies restricted to Centre-prescribed conditions; uncollected retrospective levies invalidated The BIG SC Verdict that has become the Congress and BJD's theatre of disruption in State Assembly Has this Mega Caveat: The 9-judge bench explicitly noted that “under Entry 54 of the Union List (List I) , the Parliament has the ultimate sovereign power to limit, cap, or completely prohibit states from taxing mineral rights if it dictates that doing so is in the "public interest" or necessary for national industrial development.” Why did governments at the Centre repeatedly worry about State mineral taxes? There is a basic economic reason behind the Union's recurring position. India's steel, cement, electricity, aluminium, infrastructure and several other industries depend heavily on minerals. If every mineral-producing State were free to impose a separate layer of taxation on the same mineral base, the final cost could vary sharply from State to State. That is precisely the argument the Union has advanced in the present controversy: tax uncertainty and overlapping levies can affect investment, production costs and downstream industries. The Union's 2026 explanation says the amendment is intended to create a more predictable fiscal framework and avoid cascading costs. There is also a constitutional dimension. The Union's position has repeatedly rested on Entry 54 of List I , under which Parliament can legislate regarding regulation and development of mines and minerals in the public interest. So what does the headline ₹1 lakh crore really mean? Strip away the Assembly slogans and the answer becomes relatively simple. It does not mean Odisha's present mining revenue will suddenly fall by Rs1 lakh crore. The State will continue to receive its statutory royalty and other existing mining-related revenue streams. DMF collections also continue under the amended framework. The Centre says approximately 90% of mining-sector revenue continues to accrue to States. The large number principally refers to the retrospective revenue opportunity that emerged after the Supreme Court's 2024 ruling and the subsequent permission to recover certain past dues from April 1, 2005. That was a potentially enormous future receipt for mineral-rich States. Section 9D has now shut that door for unpaid/uncollected levies. So the political argument is about what Odisha could have collected , not about what Odisha had already collected and has now lost . That is a much more precise way of explaining the ₹1 lakh crore headline. The Clincher: Additional Mineral Tax Demand and the Common Man — The Real Economics This is where the MMDR controversy moves beyond political slogans and enters the real economics of the common man . The central question is not simply whether Odisha, Jharkhand or any other mineral-rich State should have greater fiscal autonomy. The harder question is: who ultimately pays when another layer of tax is added to the mineral economy? A State cess may begin as a demand for additional revenue from mining companies. But minerals do not remain inside a mine. Iron ore goes into steel; coal goes into power; steel and power go into construction, transport, manufacturing and almost every part of the economy. The additional cost can therefore travel down the entire economic chain. From Mine to Market: Where the Cost Can Travel The first hit is at the mine. An additional State-level cess or surcharge raises the effective cost of extracting or moving the mineral. For a mining company operating on tight margins, the additional levy can affect the economics of production, investment and expansion. The second hit is industry. Iron ore is not the final product. Coal is not the final product. They are inputs into steel, electricity, construction and manufacturing. If the cost of those inputs rises, downstream industries have to absorb, pass on or otherwise manage that additional cost. The third hit is the consumer. When higher input costs move through steel, cement, electricity, transport and construction, they can eventually appear in the prices paid by households. The transmission is not always one-to-one – companies can absorb part of the increase, improve efficiency or source alternatives – but the economic chain is clear: a tax imposed upstream can create a cost downstream. The Mineral Cess Crisis: The ₹1 Lakh Crore Question This is precisely why the retrospective mineral-tax issue became so large. After the Supreme Court's 2024 ruling recognised the States' power to tax mineral rights, the possibility emerged of recovering large amounts of previously unpaid levies. The retrospective claims across mineral-producing States were estimated in very large numbers. For Odisha, the political headline has centred around Rs1 lakh crore and more . Structural Impact: From Mineral Tax to the Common Man Economic Layer Additional Levy / Cost Trigger Impact on Mining & Industry Possible Impact on Common Man Raw Resource Extraction Additional mineral cesses, taxes or mineral-bearing land levies Raises the effective cost of domestic mineral extraction Can increase the cost base of mineral-dependent products Primary Production Mineral levies, transit charges and related costs Raises the input cost for steel, power and other mineral-dependent industries Can feed into construction, infrastructure and utility costs Industrial Employment Higher cumulative cost of mineral production May affect the economics of marginal mines, new projects and expansion decisions Slower investment can affect employment and incomes in mining-dependent regions Transport & Logistics Higher fuel and mineral-linked transportation costs Raises the cost of moving raw materials and finished goods Freight costs can feed into the prices of everyday goods Retail Consumer Market Cumulative upstream cost increases Businesses decide how much of the additional cost to absorb or pass on Households ultimately face the possibility of higher prices or lower disposable income The Bottom Line This is why the MMDR debate cannot be reduced to “State revenue versus Centre revenue.” There are actually three layers of economics at work: What the State gains. What industry pays. What the consumer ultimately bears. For mineral-rich States, an additional cess can mean additional fiscal resources for development. For the Centre, limiting overlapping mineral taxation can mean greater predictability in the national industrial economy. For industry, the issue is the cost of the raw material. And for the common man, the question is what portion of that additional cost eventually reaches his electricity bill, house construction, transport expenses or household budget. That is the real MMDR argument beneath the Assembly drama. The political fight may be over optics to cook anti-incumbency and gain votes. But the economic question is: who finally pays it? The Voters! Also Read: Analysis| Opposition Optics On Playing To Gallery To Cook Anti-Incumbency After Honeymoon Period, Matured BJP Plays Counter-Optics To Foil The Cook

Bhubaneswar: A residential school is supposed to be a wall of protection. For a tribal girl from a remote village, it is meant to be more than a place to study. It is supposed to offer a safer ecosystem – classroom, hostel, food, health care, supervision and, above all, protection. But Odisha's tribal residential-school system is confronting an uncomfortable paradox: the hostels are detecting adolescent pregnancies with increasing efficiency. Fifteen pregnancies among minor girls in government school hostels in 2025–26 means, mathematically, more than 1 ( 1.25) cases every month . In the preceding year, there were nine. Together, the two years account for 24 cases . And suddenly, the question is no longer merely how many girls became pregnant? The more disturbing question is: why is a system designed to keep vulnerable tribal children safe repeatedly discovering pregnancies only after something has already gone wrong? The answer becomes even more intriguing when Odisha's experience is placed beside the country's centrally managed residential-school architecture. Though, it cannot be said with absolutly that EMRS (Eklabya Model Residential Schools) or JNV (jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas) systems have had zero pregnancies. In fact, isolated cases may have occurred in residential-school systems elsewhere. But a comparative analysis indicates that such cases are reported far less frequently in central networks than in Odisha's state-run residential-school network. That contrast deserves examination – not as a simple tale of one system being "good" and another "bad", but as a window into what happens when education, adolescence, tribal society, distance, holidays and institutional supervision collide. The arithmetic that makes the issue impossible to ignore The latest numbers have a peculiar way of changing the emotional scale of the story. Fifteen cases in an entire state may initially look like a small number against a huge residential-school population. But convert it into time. One pregnancy every 29 days. That is what 15 cases over 12 months roughly mean. And the figure has risen from nine in 2024–25 to 15 in 2025–26. The official disclosures made in teh State Assembly put the two-year total at 24. Odisha's recent picture Academic year Reported pregnancies Approx. monthly average Major districts reported 2024–25 9 0.75 Rayagada (3), Baleshwar (1), Debagada (1), Kendujhar (1), Koraput (1), Malkangiri (1), Mayurbhanj (1) 2025–26 15 1.25 Kandhamal (5), Koraput (4), Debagada (1), Kendujhar (1), Malkangiri (1), Mayurbhanj (1), Rayagada (1), Sundargarh (1) 2024–26 24 1.00 over two years Concentration visible in tribal-dominated districts The district distribution is revealing in its own way. In 2025–26, Kandhamal alone accounted for five cases and Koraput four . Together, they contributed nine of the 15 cases. In Koraput, cases posted a rise. The district count expanded to 8 from 7. The Big Takeaway has been that many districts repeat their name in the dubious list. However, it is also to pertnent to menition that this is not a statistical storm uniformly sweeping every residential school in Odisha. It appears concentrated around particular social and geographical vulnerabilities. And that distinction matters. The irony: the better the thermometer, the higher the fever There is an important defence available to the system – and it should not be ignored. Odisha has strengthened health surveillance. Girls are subjected to health checks after returning from vacations. ANMs and health teams are involved. Menstrual-health monitoring and sanitary-pad distribution can provide early signals of missed periods or physical changes. Several pregnancies are detected precisely because someone is looking. That means the rising number does not automatically mean that pregnancies themselves have risen by the same proportion . Some of the increase may represent better detection. This creates an unusual statistical paradox: A system that starts looking harder will inevitably find more of what previously remained hidden. But there is a second side to that argument. Better detection can explain why the numbers are visible. It cannot, by itself, explain why there are 15 cases in one year . Detection answers the question "How did we find them?" It does not answer the more important question: "Why did the warning signs not work before pregnancy occurred?" That is where the story moves from statistics into sociology. The school ends at the hostel gate For years, the official explanation has repeatedly pointed towards vacations. The argument is straightforward: many girls return to their villages during summer, winter or festival breaks; some alleged exploitation takes place during that period; the pregnancy is discovered only when the girl returns to the hostel. There is a cruel irony here. The residential school may provide the child with accommodation, food, education and supervision for much of the year. But the child does not live inside the institution's protection permanently. The hostel gate opens. The girl goes home. The school becomes blind to what happens next. Then she returns. And the system's medical machinery discovers what the social machinery failed to prevent. This is why calling it merely a "hostel problem" risks missing the real sociology of the issue. The school is residential. The vulnerability is not. The holiday becomes the invisible classroom For an adolescent tribal girl, the village is not simply a holiday destination. It is family, relatives, neighbours, peers, social expectations, relationships and, in some cases, unequal power structures. A glance at nationwide picture indicates that similar concerns have surfaced in other tribal residential-school networks too, including Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh . Across these cases, the recurring vulnerabilities include long vacations, remote locations, staff shortages and inadequate supervision during transit and village stays. That produces an uncomfortable sociological equation: The school can control the classroom. It can control the hostel. It can control the timetable. It cannot automatically control the social world into which the child returns. And therein lies the loophole. Why does the central-school comparison matter? This is where Odisha's experience becomes particularly interesting. EMRS and JNV campuses operate under more standardised central administrative frameworks. They provide stronger institutional supervision, structured grievance systems, mentor-mentee arrangements and more formalised campus management. Their vacation arrangements are also described as more tightly controlled, with direct handover to registered parents or guardians and pre-vacation sensitisation. And the contrast extends beyond security. The central-school model places greater emphasis on professional support, including female nursing staff and psychological counselling, whereas Odisha's state network has historically relied more heavily on matrons and general teaching or administrative personnel for several functions. That difference may sound bureaucratic on paper. For a 14- or 15-year-old girl, it can be the difference between having someone trained to recognise a behavioural or physiological warning sign and simply having someone responsible for attendance and discipline. That is not a small distinction. Odisha's older numbers make the present spike even more curious The historical record adds another layer. Between 2009 and 2018 , the Odisha Assembly was told of 16 institutional pregnancy cases over roughly a decade. The cases were concentrated largely in tribal districts including Koraput, Malkangiri, Mayurbhanj and Kandhamal. Then came 2019, when three minor girls were officially confirmed pregnant by June, with cases linked to residential hostels in Bhubaneswar, Dhenkanal and Mayurbhanj . The key takeaway here is it spread from tribal to State Capital and Central Odisha . And now: 24 cases in just two financial years. The longer timeline Period Reported cases What the numbers suggest 2009–2018 16 Cases accumulated slowly over roughly a decade By June 2019 3 A cluster triggered Assembly concern 2024–25 9 Detection under stronger health surveillance 2025–26 15 Highest recent annual figure 2024–26 24 Average of one reported case every month But this table comes with an important warning. These are not perfectly comparable statistical series . The monitoring architecture changed over time, and the pandemic years disrupted residential schooling and reporting. The government's explanation for the recent increase has included stronger screening and detection. So the responsible conclusion is not that pregnancies have simply increased by a mathematical multiple. It is that the system is now seeing a problem that was previously much less visible. The real failure may sit between three doors Perhaps the most revealing way to understand the problem is to imagine three doors. Door No. 1: The school Here the system can monitor attendance, health, hostel movement and behaviour. Odisha has clearly strengthened this layer. Door No. 2: The village Here the institutional shield becomes weaker. The girl returns to a social environment where the residential-school administration has little continuous visibility. Door No. 3: The conversation This may be the most neglected door of all. What does a 13-, 14- or 15-year-old girl know about reproduction? Can she identify sexual exploitation? Does she know where to report pressure? Can she discuss menstruation, relationships, unwanted touching or pregnancy without fear of punishment or stigma? And, crucially, is there a trained adult she trusts enough to ask? A study of central and state model points to a major difference here: central systems incorporate counselling and more formalised adolescent support, while state residential schools have often depended on general staff and generic "life-skills" approaches, with reproductive-health discussions constrained by social taboos. That makes this less a story about biology than about knowledge, silence and institutional design. The strangest part: the sanitary napkin becomes an alarm bell There is something almost painfully ironic about the manner in which some cases are detected. A girl misses her monthly sanitary-pad collection. A matron notices. A health worker checks. A medical examination follows. And suddenly an institution discovers a pregnancy. A sanitary napkin distribution register, in other words, can become an early-warning system for a problem that began much earlier. Reports earlier have specifically cited menstrual-health monitoring and anomalies in sanitary-pad collection as triggers for medical examination in some districts. That is useful surveillance. But it also tells us something else. The system is becoming very good at finding the aftermath. The larger educational challenge is to become equally good at recognising the warning signs before there is an aftermath to detect. And this is where the comparison with central schools becomes uncomfortable The central-school model tries to build several layers around the adolescent: supervision + counselling + health support + vacation accountability + grievance mechanisms. The state residential-school model often has: hostel + warden/matron + teacher + periodic health intervention. The difference is not simply money. It is architecture. One treats adolescent safety as a specialised institutional function. The other can sometimes treat it as an extension of hostel administration. And that is why the question confronting Odisha is not merely: "Why are these girls becoming pregnant?" It is: "Why does the system have a medical mechanism to discover pregnancy faster than it has an educational mechanism to prevent vulnerability?" A Compact comparison The comparison with EMRS and JNV is not about declaring one system perfect and another defective. It is about institutional design. It indicates that centrally managed residential systems have more standardised arrangements around campus supervision, grievance mechanisms, mentor-mentee systems, vacation accountability and professional support. Their vacation architecture is also described as more formalised, including direct handover to registered parents or guardians and pre-vacation sensitisation. The difference becomes even more interesting around counselling and health support. Protection layer Central residential model* Odisha state residential network Campus supervision More standardised institutional framework Varies across remote state-run institutions Counselling Professional counselling structures described Greater reliance on matrons/general staff in many settings Health support Dedicated professional support highlighted ANM/health-team intervention increasingly used Vacation control More formal parent/guardian handover and sensitisation Greater vulnerability once students return to villages Reproductive-health discussion More structured health/life-skills framework Social taboo can push sensitive issues into generic "life skills" Security infrastructure Codified campus arrangements Vulnerabilities reported in some remote/semi-permanent facilities Detection Institutional grievance and support mechanisms Increasingly strong post-vacation health detection The difference, therefore, is not simply central versus state . It is potentially the difference between seeing adolescent safety as a specialised institutional responsibility and treating it largely as an extension of hostel administration. Also Read: Special Report| Is the Utkal University Paper Leak an Insider Job? Inside the Political Modus Operandi as Rahul Gandhi’s “Chatron Ki Goonj' Odisha Edition Nears