Kupwara leads aspirational district ranking in North

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 13

Once known for heavy militant infestation, Kupwara district this week emerged a leader in north India in the first independent appraisal of the national aspirational district programme by the UNDP.

Among the 112 aspirational districts ranked by the UNDP on five key criteria of healthcare and nutrition, education, agriculture and water resources, basic infrastructure, skill development and financial inclusion, Kupwara is the top ranked at number 30 among eight other aspirational districts in north India.

Kupwara is also the only north Indian aspirational district to make it to the top 30.

Valley fares poorly

Among the eight aspirational districts from Punjab, Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana and Uttarakhand, Chamba is at the bottom

The lowest ranked aspirational district among northern states is Himachal Pradesh’s Chamba at the 85th position.

The UNDP in a recent assessment of the Aspirational Districts Programme launched in 2018 across 28 states concluded that the programme had helped achieve the objectives of accelerated growth in 112 most backward districts of the country through convergence of government programmes.

The assessors used two indices — resilience and vulnerability — to determine which of the districts performed better than the others. A comparison between the aspirational districts and their counterparts found that the formers outperformed the latters with 9.6% more home deliveries attended by a skilled birth attendant there, 5.8% more pregnant women with severe anemia treated, 4.8% more children diagnosed with diarrhoea treated, 4.5% more pregnant registered for antenatal care within their first trimester.