Delta Ranking of the Aspirational Districts

• 28 Dec 2018

NITI Aayog has released the ranking of 111 aspirational districts- DEEP-DIVE 2nd Delta Ranking & Insights from Household Survey.

Aspirational Districts were ranked on improved performance made by them over the months of June – October 2018.

• The districts were assessed across six developmental areas of Health and Nutrition, Education, Agriculture and Water Resources, Financial Inclusion, Skill Development, and Basic Infrastructure.
• The ranking also factored invalidated data from Household Surveys conducted by NITI Aayog’s knowledge partners, namely, TATA Trusts and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (IDInsight).
• The Surveys were carried out in all Aspirational Districts during the month of June 2018 covering more than 1,00,000 households.
• The first delta ranking for aspirational districts was released in June 2018.

Ranking of Districts

Most and Least Improved Districts (June-October 2018)
Rank	District, State	Rank	District, State
1	Virudhunagar, Tamil Nadu	107	Kiphire, Nagaland
2	Nuapada, Odisha	108	Giridh, Jharkhand
3	Siddharthnagar, Uttar Pradesh	109	Chatra, Jharkhand
4	Aurangabad, Bihar	110	HailaKandi, Assam
5	Koraput, Odisha	111	Pakur, Jharkhand

"Fast Movers’: Districts which have shown a qualitative jump in their scores between June and October 2018
District, State	June 2018	October 2018
Kupwara, Jammu, and Kashmir	108	7
Ranchi, Jharkhand	106	10
Siddarthnagar, Uttar Pradesh	101	3
Jamui, Bihar	99	9
Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh	82	25

Most and Least Improved Districts Across Different Themes
Themes	Most Improved District	Least Improved Districts
Education	Virudhunagar, Tamil Nadu	Pakur, Jharkhand
Health and Nutrition	Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh	Chatra, Jharkhand
Financial Inclusion	Kupwara, Jammu, and Kashmir	Chandel, Manipur
Agriculture and Water Resources	Sitmarhi, Bihar	Giridh, Jharkhand
Basic Infrastructure	Virudhunagar, Tami Nadu	Pakur, Jharkhand
Skill Development	Raichur, Karnataka	Khammam, Telangana

Significance

• The delta ranking of the Aspirational Districts combines the innovative use of data with pragmatic administration, keeping the district at the locus of inclusive development.
• This positioning is expected to aid the District Magistrates/Collectors to focus more on these sectors and improve their ranking in the future.

‘Transformation of Aspirational Districts’ programme

• This was launched in January 2018.
• The programme was launched with the aim of expeditiously improving the socio-economic status of 117 districts through cooperative and competitive federalism.
• Driven primarily by the States, this initiative focuses on the strengths of each district and prioritizes the attainable outcomes for immediate improvement.
• The Aspirational Districts programme aims to rapidly transform districts that have been showing relatively less progress in key social areas, and have emerged as pockets of under-development, thereby posing a challenge to balanced regional development.
• The programme tracks 81 data-points across six themes with direct bearing on the quality of life and economic productivity of citizens. The themes and their weights are as follows:
• The broad contours of the programme are:
  • Convergence (of Central & State Schemes),
  • Collaboration (of Central, State level ‘Prabhari’ Officers & District Collectors),
  • Competition among districts driven by a Mass Movement or a Jan Andolan.

Delta Ranking

• The programme ranks districts based on the improvement achieved month-on-month through the Champions of Change dashboard (An online Dashboard).
• Districts enter data for the previous month by the 20th of the next month, after which the dashboard automatically updates ranking based on the entered data.