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Aspirational Blocks Programme: Building blocks of Viksit Bharat

The programme improves governance by converging existing schemes, defining outcomes, and monitoring them on a constant basis

An inter-ministerial committee in consultation with states had identified 500 blocks from across 28 states and four Union territories. (Representational/File)An inter-ministerial committee in consultation with states had identified 500 blocks from across 28 states and four Union territories. (Representational/File)
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Aspirational Blocks Programme: Building blocks of Viksit Bharat
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Sharing borders with the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and situated inside the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary lies an Adivasi hamlet in the Sulthan Bathery block of district Wayanad in Kerala. Owing to the geographical location, the region remains reachable only by foot. The district uses mobile medical units, a van with a tribal medical officer, an ASHA volunteer, and a public health nurse to provide medical services. They set up medical camps to ensure that residents are screened for any conditions, provided with medicines, and counselling. Like Sulthan Bathery, geographical remoteness and other factors have deprived many such pockets across India of socioeconomic development. But now there is hope. Sulthan Bathery is one of the blocks selected by the state of Kerala to improve government service delivery under the Aspirational Blocks Programme.

On January 7, during the Second National Conference of Chief Secretaries, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Aspirational Blocks Programme (ABP). This transformational programme focuses on improving governance to enhance the quality of life of citizens in the most difficult and underdeveloped blocks of India by converging existing schemes, defining outcomes, and monitoring them on a constant basis. The ABP is built on the noteworthy success of the government’s flagship Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP) launched in 2018 across 112 under-developed districts of India.

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An inter-ministerial committee in consultation with states had identified 500 blocks from across 28 states and four Union territories. In each of them, the ABP will focus on monitoring 15 key socio-economic indicators (KSIs) categorised under major sectors namely, health and nutrition, education, agriculture and water resources, financial inclusion and skill development, basic infrastructure and social development. These themes were selected for facilitating holistic development of every block with states having the flexibility to include additional state-specific KSIs to address local challenges. The KSIs will be tracked on a real-time basis and periodic rankings will be released across key thematic areas to foster a healthy and dynamic competition among the blocks to encourage data-driven governance.

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The focus on blocks echoes the historic importance of blocks or development blocks introduced in 1952 to provide for a substantial increase in the country’s agricultural programme, and for improvements in systems of communication, in rural health and hygiene, and in rural education. Development blocks ensure that a larger than proportionate share of development reaches the marginalised and vulnerable sections of the population by building social and economic infrastructure. As an administrative and monitoring unit, the block ensures that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is not applied to every part of the country. Instead, the block administration can adopt customised approaches towards improving socioeconomic indicators based on the context of the region and the most emergent needs. This method also brings the decision-making process closer to the grass roots.

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The ADP has shown that if development is taken as a “Jan Andolan” and progress of a district is constantly monitored, success would follow. In the last five years, many aspirational districts have bettered their performance, across several indicators, than the state average values. For example, Paschimi Singbhum, a district in Jharkhand and a left-wing extremism-affected area, has raised registration of pregnant women within the first trimester from just 39 per cent in 2018 to 91 per cent in 2022. Districts such as Gumla in Jharkhand, Karauli in Rajasthan, Namsai in Arunachal Pradesh, and Dhalai in Tripura have increased the percentage of institutional deliveries from around 40 per cent to more than 90 per cent. Kupwara in Jammu and Kashmir has increased the percentage of secondary schools with functional electricity from less than 50 per cent in 2018 to more than 95 per cent in 2022. Many districts like Dhenkanal in Odisha, where less than 50 per cent children were immunised up until 2018, have now gone beyond the 90 per cent immunisation rate.

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There are other success stories like deploying self help groups in rural Ranchi to promote financial inclusion and financial literacy using UPI and BHIM apps, supporting local residents and frontline workers in Barwani (Madhya Pradesh) with additional incentives to ensure that pregnant women reach the public health institution for ante-natal and post-natal care, and completely digitising court services to improve speed and access to justice in rural Osmanabad (Maharashtra).

On February 1, 2022, the Finance Minister in her Union Budget speech mentioned that 95 per cent of 112 aspirational districts have made significant progress in major indicators such as health, nutrition, financial inclusion, and skill development. However, she also highlighted that some blocks continue to under-perform. The reasons for this can be multi-layered — difficult terrain, lack of resources, historical injustice, social marginalisation and community vulnerability, among others.

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The ABP aims to address these inequalities by improving governance and last mile service delivery at the block level. As key drivers of this initiative, states are expected to guide, support, review and build capacity of relevant officers to drive progress under this programme. Under the leadership of the district administration, the officers at the block level will improve critical last mile service delivery. They will focus on improving the infrastructure at the block level to aid social welfare development. Several line departments of the block administration will converge and work in unison to bridge critical administrative gaps and sustain these developments and improvements for a long period of time. This holistic development will positively catalyse economic development. This will also aid the achievement of critical targets identified under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and enable the blocks to contribute to India’s GDP. The programme strives to protect the rights and uphold the dignity of every single citizen by increasing their awareness and enhancing access to government schemes. It also provides a common platform for all block administrations to showcase their best practices and learnings.

A “viksit” block is the foundation for a “viksit” Bharat. This forward-looking programme will leverage the three Cs of convergence, collaboration, and competition to achieve this vision.

The author is CEO, NITI Aayog. Views are personal

First uploaded on: 23-01-2023 at 07:10 IST
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