TN’S Virudhunagar best, Pakur in Jharkhand worst

NEW DELHI: Tamil Nadu’s Virudhunagar is the top performer and Pakur in Jharkhand the least improved among 111 so-called aspirational districts, according to a survey by the think tank Niti Aayog that measured their progress on parameters, including health and nutrition, education and basic infrastructure.

The survey was aimed at measuring the incremental progress made by the districts between June and October. In the first such ranking released in June, Jammu and Kashmir’s Kupwara was at the bottom and Gujarat’s Dahod at the top in terms of improvement made by districts.

West Bengal did not participate in the exercise and the survey could not cover Wayanad in Kerala on account of floods in the state, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said, releasing the rankings.

The Transformation of Aspirational Districts Programme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January 2018 and is aimed at developing some of India’s most underdeveloped districts in which a district’s progress on agriculture and water resources, financial inclusion and skill development, besides health, education and infrastructure is measured.

Nuapada in Odisha, Siddharthnagar in Uttar Pradesh, Aurangabad in Bihar and Koraput in Odisha ranked second to fifth on the list of top performers. Giridh and Chatra, both in Jharkhand, were among the underperformers as were Hailakandi in Assam and Kiphire in Nagaland.

Kupwara and Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir have shown a marked improvement in terms of financial inclusion.

The average marks scored by students in Class 3 had significantly improved, indicating rising standards in elementary education. “Students in several districts improved their average marks in Mathematics and Language compared to the national achievement survey 2017.