Dahod district in Gujarat has been ranked first among 108 “aspirational districts” by the NITI Aayog on the basis of incremental development over two months from March 31 this year on five development areas of agriculture, basic infrastructure, education, water resources, health and nutrition.
West Sikkim (Sikkim) and Ramanathapuram (Tamil Nadu) came second and third respectively. The worst performer districts are Kupwara (Jammu & Kashmir), Begusarai (Bihar), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Simdega (Jharkhand) and Khagadia (Bihar).
As per data of the 115 aspirational districts, only 108 participated in the first Delta ranking.
The delta ranking was released by NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Friday. Begusarai district of Bihar ranked 107 while Banka and Khagaria ranked 104 and 105 respectively.
Bihar’s Muzaffarpur ranked 87, Katiyar ranked 95, Jamui ranked 99 and Purnia 89.
While three districts of West Bengal did not participate in the ranking, Odisha and Kerala sent their entries late and hence they could not be included in the ranking exercise. Asifabad district of Telangana, which was ranked 100 in baseline ranking released in March this year, made significant improvements in past two months and stood at 15 in Delta ranking.
Commenting on the ranking, CEO at NITI Aayog, Amitabh Kant said, “The purpose of this ranking is to spur a sense of competition among the dynamic teams in the districts. The knowledge partners of NITI Aayog — Tata Trusts, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and ID Insights — are expected to provide data on 13 survey indicators and have validated values for 29 data-points. The next ranking will take into account these inputs and will be released soon thereafter,” he added.
The Transformation of Aspirational Districts Programme was launched by the Prime Minister that aims to develop some of the most underdeveloped districts of the country.
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.
