Rajnandgaon ranked 2nd in country among 101 aspirational districts

Rajnandgaon district of Chhattisgarh stands second in the  baseline ranking for the 101 aspirational districts in the country created by NITI Aayog with score of 47.96 per cent.

This programme is a policy priority of  the Central Government.

NITI Aayog anchors the programme with support from Central Ministries and the State Governments. While NITI Aayog is steering the initiative in 30 districts, various central ministries oversee 50 districts besides the Ministry of Home Affairs, which focuses on 35 Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected districts.

Officers at the level of Joint Secretary / Additional Secretary have been nominated to become the ‘Central Prabhari Officers’ of each district. States have appointed state-nodal and Prabhari officers. An Empowered Committee under the Convenorship of the CEO, NITI Aayog will help in the convergence of various government schemes and streamlining of efforts.

The Government is committed to raising the living standards of its citizens and ensuring inclusive growth for all – “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas”. To enable optimum utilization of their potential, this program focuses closely on improving people’s ability to participate fully in the vibrant economy. Health & Nutrition, Education, Agriculture & Water Resources, Financial Inclusion & Skill Development, and Basic Infrastructure are this programme’s core areas of focus, a NITI Aayog report informed.

After several rounds of consultations with various stakeholders, 49 key performance indicators have been chosen to measure progress of the districts.

Districts are aspiring 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 and cooperative federalism.

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.

With the latest available data from the ministries concerned, NITI Aayog has completed a baseline ranking of 101 districts. Data was normalised, and a composite score was calculated. Going forward, districts will be ranked based on their progress on a real-time basis.

 Niti Aayog will subsequently calculate the ‘distance to frontier’ – i.e. the distance of each district from the state’s and nation’s best, the report informed.