The government think tank NITI Aayog launched the Aspirational Districts
programme in January 2018 which aims at fast-tracking the socio-economic status of 112 districts of the country.
On Thursday, the Aayog released the second delta ranking of 111 districts [Wayanad in Kerala could not be assessed due to the floods]. The rankings reflect the incremental progress made by the districts between the period of June and October.
Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu emerged as the top performer. The other top performers were Nuapada[Odisha], Siddharthnagar[Uttar Pradesh], Aurangabad [Bihar] and Koraput[Odisha] which secured 2nd to 5th ranks respectively.
The districts have been assessed on several crucial parameters like health and nutrition, education, agriculture and water resources, financial inclusion, skill development, and basic infrastructure. The rankings have also included inputs from the household survey conducted by NITI Aayog’s knowledge partners–Tata Trusts and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The worst performer district was Pakur in Jharkhand which stood last. Also, the districts of Giridh and Chatra from Jharkhand also performed lesser than expected. The performance of Hailakandi[Assam] and Kiphire[Nagaland] was also awful.
The 20 low-ranking districts included 9 from Bihar, 5 from Jharkhand and 3 from Odisha.
The programme focuses on the rapid transformation of the under-developed districts which performed relatively poor in the key social areas. It aims at ensuring balanced regional development of the country.
In its first such ranking by NITI Aayog released in June, Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir came at the bottom while Dahod from Gujarat topped the list in terms of overall development.
Interestingly, Kupwara showed tremendous improvement this time. Also, Ranchi in Jharkhand and Siddharthnagar in Uttar Pradesh have shown significant improvements in the second data ranking.