Government of India’s Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP) is a radical departure from the country’s previous development strategies in its scale, scope and ownership. Analyse (200 words)
Refer – The Hindu
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 7 years
KEY POINTS
· ADP 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 programme is novel in so many ways:
· Approach - 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.
· Governance - Achieving success in this programme necessitates the contribution of all 3 tiers of government.
· The role of states is important in terms of facilitating resource, personnel, etc.
· On financial inclusion, the full cooperation of banks is necessary and only the Central government has leverage over them.
· The most crucial is the role of District Magistrate or Collector.
· As s/he is familiar with the challenges of his or her geography and has considerable power to implement government schemes.
· Competitive federalism - The spirit of cooperation needs to be supplemented by a culture of competition.
· ADP takes the principle of competitive federalism down to district administrations.
· Civil society - ADP has opened its door to civil society and leveraged the tool of corporate social responsibility.
· This will bring new ideas and fresh energy from non-government institutions, to join the “official” efforts.
· Efficiency - Many schemes of the Centre have flexible spending components, permitting autonomy at local level.
· But these are seldom used in practice due to controlling Central and State machineries.
· Thus ADP focusses on not just spending more but spending better.
· There is no financial package or large allocation of funds in ADP.
· It only aims at leveraging the already existing resources of several government programmes, to use them more efficiently.
· Smart data - Data collection is often delayed or lacking in quality in India, distorting the development policy efforts.
· With real time data in ADP, those on the ground level can alter strategies after accurate feedback.
· In a way, the ADP reorients how government does its business of delivering development.
