NITI Aayog Allocates Additional Funds Under Aspirational Districts Plan
The NITI Aayog on July 23, 2019, allocated additional Rs 5 crores to Rajasthan's Dholpur district, which secured fourth rank in the country on the basis of its performance in different sectors, including healthcare and financial inclusion, under the Aspirational Districts programme.
The NITI Aayog had released the ranking of 112 aspirational districts on March 6, 2019. Leading the charts were Jharkhand's Chatra, Sahibganj and Hazaribagh showing the highest improvement on the six parameters on which the survey is based. The rankings are based on 49 indicators across sectors that include health and nutrition, education, agriculture, basic infrastructure and water resources. The rankings released by NITI Aayog also shows that the top three districts have also performed well in 'health and nutrition' parameter. In 'education' category, Sonbhadra (Uttar Pradesh) , Sahibganj (Jharkhand) and Chatra (Jharkhand) have topped the rankings.
Under the Aspirational Districts initiative, the NITI Aayog is implementing a programme for providing additional allocation to districts that secure good rank.
According to the previous rankings, Kupwara in Jammu and Kashmir, Ranchi in Jharkhand have shown the fastest growth in the shortest time. Interestingly, in the first set of rankings which were released in June, Kupwara and Ranchi were ranked among the bottom three districts.
Here is all you need to know about the Aspirational Districts ranking:
The government's think-tank NITI Aayog launched the Aspirational Districts programme in January 2018 with the aim of fast-tracking the socio-economic status of 111 districts. This was seen as an opportunity for backward districts, that lack basic amenities, infrastructure, health facilities, etc., to grow. “The idea is to benchmark these districts with the best in the state and the country," a NITI Aayog official said.
Further, these districts are divided among ministries to promote competition among them. For instance, the NITI Aayog has taken the responsibilities of 32 districts while the home ministry will be responsible for 35 districts. The rest of them have been divided between Panchayati Raj, health and human resource ministry.
Many challenges
Red-tapism: While the ministries have been given charge of the development work under the scheme, the various level of approvals and watchdogs may result in blame-game in case the mission fails to take off. For instance, district magistrates will prepare the strategy for improving each parameter. They will have two mentors or prabharis — a joint secretary or additional secretary rank officer appointed by the Centre and one secretary rank official from the state government. The implementation task is being left to the DM although the prabharis will visit the district under there charge at least six times a year. The prabharis will report to committee headed by NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant with expenditure secretary AN Jha and other secretaries as members. The reporting at many levels might create a problem in implementation.
Funding: Though funding has never remained an issue with the current government, failure in using the available fund is a bigger setback this time. For instance, smart city fund, environment fund, Swachh Bharat fund is lying unused. At the district level, the major complaint raised is about the timely release of funds under various schemes. Currently, the allocation under various government schemes ranges from Rs 600-700 crore for smaller districts to Rs 1,100-1,200 crore for the larger ones. The government could tap into CSR funds available with companies in case of shortage of finance.
Timely execution: Going by the past track record, work on smart cities is rarely started in the selected cities as most of them are still struggling with planning, funding crises, land acquisition issues and lack of realistic ideas. For AMRUT schemes, few cities have not even finalized the consultants for monitoring work while others have not finished the detailed project report.