SRINAGAR: In a significant exercise, the remote blocks of Keller (Shopian), DK Marg (Kulgam), Manzgam (Kulgam), and Kashtigarh (Doda) had found a place among the first ten Aspirational Blocks in the 2nd edition of rankings released by Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta, here under Aspirational Block Development Programme (ABDP) of the UT.
Earlier the Chief Secretary has also released the first-ever Panchayat rankings along with the third edition of the District Good Governance Index for the UT thereby providing the whole framework to assess the developmental standards right from Panchayat up to the District level.
Dr Mehta complimented all the concerned officers whose contributions had got fructified into better rankings in their areas. He said that these rankings also point out those areas where more focus needs to be laid. He enjoined upon the officers posted in these areas to gear up with renewed energy and come up as achievers next time.
He highlighted that these rankings tell the outcomes of our endeavors till now and the way forward from here. He exuded hope that in the years ahead with such a planning process at our back, most of our problems would find resolution smoothly.
He called it a tool for ensuring good governance in the UT. He also advised for making a permanent dashboard to monitor and update these rankings monthly. He also directed the Housing & Urban Development Department for carrying out Town rankings in the days ahead on similar lines.
Among the Aspirational Blocks which were assessed 2nd time after the previous year, the Harwan and Khonmoh blocks of Srinagar District are at Ist and 2nd spot with Keller (Shopian) at 3rd position, DK Marg (Kulgam) at 4th, Chittergul (Anantnag) at 5th, Pragwal and Samwan blocks of Jammu securing 6th and 7th spots, Aripal (Pulwama) 8th, Manzgam (Kulgam) 9th and Kashtigarh (Doda) 10th.
In all 44 Aspirational Blocks were selected from 285 Blocks of UT of J&K, based on their backwardness on the basis of 21 indicators covering four major aspects of human development i.e., Poverty (3 indicators), Health & Nutrition (6 indicators), Education (7 indicators) & Basic Infrastructure (5 indicators). Each of these blocks were provided Rs One Crore financial assistance for making achievement in the given parameters.
Like Aspirational Panchayat Development Programme, the ABDP is a unique initiative of the JK government taken last year on the analogy of the Aspirational District Development Programme. For monitoring purposes, the ABDP Dashboard was developed for monitoring the progress of these 44 Aspirational Blocks on 61 Data Points based on 49 Key Performance Indicators.
The bottom 10 blocks in the list include Moungri (Udhampur) at the bottom of the list. Others above it in order comprise Chasana (Reasi), Mankote (Poonch), DuduBasantgarh (Udhampur), JiJBagli(Reasi), Warwan (Kishtwar), Duggain (Kathua), Gundi Dharam (Ramban), Mahore (Reasi), Tulail (Bandipora) and Marwah (Kishtwar) at 34th place among these 44 backward blocks of the UT.
These rankings were released by the Chief Secretary in the presence of all the Administrative Secretaries, District Development Commissioners, HoDs of Planning, Finance, and other concerned departments.
