The Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh made significant strides by improving 14.7 points and ranked 6th in Delta ranking, improving from 45th position in Baseline ranking, announced NITI Aayog.
The NITI Aayog on Friday launched the first Delta ranking (incremental progress) for the Aspirational Districts, based on self-reported data of districts between March 31, 2018 to May 31, 2018, across five developmental areas of Health and Nutrition, Education, Agriculture and Water Resources, Financial Inclusion and Skill Development and Basic Infrastructure. Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, highlighted the keen interest displayed by the districts to provide real-time data points by filling up the Champions of Change Dashboard.
"The purpose of this ranking is to spur a sense of competition among the dynamic teams in the districts. Since these districts face many challenges including legacy, unexploited or weak resource base, deficit manpower at different levels due to difficult living conditions etc, the ranking is also a tool to identify sectors and indicator specific challenges so that Team India, which is driving this programme, can take immediate corrective measures", he said while releasing the first delta ranking of the Aspirational Districts. The Districts started entering data from April 1, 2018 in the Champions of Change Dashboard and 108 districts out of total 112, participated in this ranking. Data entry by remaining four districts is also in progress, though they are not part of this ranking. The Delta ranking is computed in a transparent manner for combined improvements made during April and May 2018.
Some of the data points have been sourced from Central Ministries viz. Financial Inclusion, Skill Development and three indicators of Basic Infrastructure - Household Electricity Connections, Household Toilets and Rural Drinking Water. Most of the data points, however, have been self-reported by the various districts themselves. This Delta ranking takes a step further and looks into specific aspects of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and analyses how districts have performed in last two months across important sectors. This grouping and positioning would aid the district magistrates to focus more on these sectors and improve their ranking in future.
The knowledge partners of NITI Aayog -Tata Trusts and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (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. launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January this year, 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. With States as the main drivers, this program will focus on the strength of each district, identify low-hanging fruits for immediate improvement, measure progress and rank districts.
