NITI Aayog launches baseline ranking for Aspirational Districts

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog on March 28, 2018, launched the baseline ranking for the Aspirational Districts based on published data of 49 indicators (81 data points) across five developmental areas of Health and Nutrition, Education, Agriculture and Water Resources, Financial Inclusion and Skill Development, and Basic Infrastructure. The ranking was released by Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog.

The CEO, NITI Aayog, also announced that the ‘Champions of Change’ Dashboard for real-time data collection and monitoring will be open for public viewing from April 1, 2018. The dashboard will facilitate District Collectors of all the aspirational districts to input the latest available data of their respective districts. A Workshop was organized on March 23 to train representatives of the Districts to familiarise them with the Dashboard and its functioning including data input, verification and presentation.

“We want to create competition at the State, District and even the block level. Why do some districts lag on crucial indicators of human development while other districts in the same State excel? Bridging this ‘distance to frontier’ is key to ensuring the States’ prosperity and the Nation’s progress,” said Amitabh Kant, according to a PIB release.

“The Aspirational Districts programme, through real-time monitoring and proactive course corrections, reinforces the mechanisms of cooperative & competitive federalism between the Centre and the States, down to the Districts,” said Kant.

From May 2018, Districts will be ranked on their “incremental progress” i.e. Delta Ranking exemplifying the spirit of competitive federalism. Districts can learn from each other’s experiences using the “Best Practices” document that NITI Aayog has prepared and circulated to the district collectors.

Launched by PM Narendra Modi in January 2018, the ‘Transformation of Aspirational Districts’ programme aims to quickly and effectively transform some of the most underdeveloped districts of the country. The broad contours of the programme are Convergence (of Central & State Schemes), Collaboration (of Central, State level ‘Prabhari’ Officers & District Collectors), and Competition among districts driven by a Mass Movement or a Jan Andolan.

After several rounds of consultations with various stakeholders, 49 key performance indicators have been chosen to measure progress of the districts. Districts are prodded and encouraged to first catch-up with the best district within their state, and subsequently aspire to become one of the best in the country, by competing with, and learning from others in the spirit of competitive & cooperative federalism.

NITI Aayog in partnership with the Government of Andhra Pradesh has created a dashboard for monitoring the real-time progress of the districts. District Information Officers underwent training on March 23, 2018, on how to enter data to the dashboard and generate MIS (Management Information System) reports. On April 1, 2018, districts will start entering data. Beginning May 2018, districts will be ranked based on progress made (‘delta ranking’) on a real-time basis. The dashboard will be open to the public to monitor the progress of the Aspirational Districts.