Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday (7th January 2023) launched the government’s Aspirational Block Programme (ABP), which is aimed at improving performance of blocks lagging on various development parameters.
* The Aspirational Blocks Programme is on the lines of the Aspirational District Programme that was launched in 2018 and covers 112 districts across the country.
About Aspirational Block Programme (ABP) :
* The Centre had announced its intention to launch this initiative in the Union Budget 2022-23.
* The programme will cover 500 districts across 31 states and Union Territories initially.
* Over half of these blocks are in 6 states—Uttar Pradesh (68 blocks), Bihar (61), Madhya Pradesh (42), Jharkhand (34), Odisha (29) and West Bengal (29).
* However, states can add more blocks to the programme later.
Ranking of these Blocks :
* NITI Aayog in partnership with the states will release a quarterly ranking of these blocks based on their performance on development indicators covering sectors such as health, education and nutrition among others.
About Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP) :
* Launched in January 2018, the ‘Transformation of Aspirational Districts’ initiative aims to remove this heterogeneity through a mass movement to quickly and effectively transform these districts.
* The broad contours of the program are Convergence (of Central & State Schemes), Collaboration (of Central, State level ‘Prabhari’ Officers & District Collectors), and Competition among districts driven by a spirit of mass Movement.
* 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.
Features of the ADP :
* It has transformed into a Jan Andolan.
* The ADP is different in trying to monitor the improvement of these districts through real-time data tracking.
* The programme seeks to develop convergence between selected existing central and state government programmes.
* District performance in the public domain and experience building of the district bureaucracy is another notable feature.
* The programme is targeted, not towards any single group of beneficiaries, but rather towards the population of the district as a whole.
Selection of districts :
* A total of 117 Aspirational districts have been identified by NITI Aayog based upon composite indicators.
* The objective of the program is to monitor the real-time progress of aspirational districts based on 49 indicators (81 data points) from the 5 identified thematic areas..
Source : Indian Express