Why in News?

• The ‘Transformation of Aspirational Districts’ initiative aims to remove this heterogeneity through a mass movement to quickly and effectively transform these districts.

Highlights:

• It aims to quickly and effectively transform some of India’s most underdeveloped districts.
• It will identify areas of immediate improvement, measure progress, and rank districts.
• The broad ideas of the programme include –
  • Convergence of central and state schemes
  • Collaboration of central, state level ‘prabhari’ (in-charge) officers and district collectors
  • Competition among districts
  • The states are the main drivers in the programme.
  • Deliberately, the districts have been described as aspirational rather than backward
• The motive is to view them as areas of opportunity and hope rather than of distress and hopelessness.

Districts selection:

• The 115 districts were chosen by senior officials of the Union government.
• This was in consultation with State officials on the basis of a composite index.
• The parameters included are –
• Deprivation enumerated under Socio-Economic Caste Census
• Key health and education performance indicators
• State of basic infrastructure

Progress monitoring:

• NITI Aayog in partnership with the government of Andhra Pradesh has created a dashboard.
• Monitoring the real-time progress of the districts.
• District collectors of all the aspirational districts can input the latest available data of their respective district
• The dashboard will also be open to the public

Significance of ADP:

• This is the first time India’s most backward districts are being focussed.
• ADP is a better vision of how public services are best delivered to those who need them the most. Achieving success in this programme necessitates the contribution of all 3 tiers of government. ADP takes the principle of competitive federalism down to district administrations.
• This will bring new ideas and fresh energy from non-government institutions, to join the “official” efforts. With real time data in ADP, those on the ground level can alter strategies after accurate feedback.
• The ADP reorients how government does its business of delivering development.

Prabhari Officer:

• Each district has a prabhari (in-charge) officer:
  •   Assigned from the Centre (of additional secretary or joint secretary rank)
  •   Assigned from the State (of the rank of Secretary to State government)