NEW DELHI: Kondagaon district in the State of Chhattisgarh has topped the rankings of aspirational districts by the Niti Aayog for May 2019. Fatehpur district in Uttar Pradesh and Pakur district in Jharkhand were ranked as second and third respectively. Dhaulpur in Rajasthan and Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh stood fourth and fifth position in the government’s aspirational districts program.
The rankings measured the increasing progress made by over 100 aspirational districts in May 2019 across six developmental areas which include health and nutrition, education, agriculture and water resources, financial inclusion, skill development, and basic infrastructure. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the aspirational district program on January 5, 2018.
The program is an initiative to rapidly transform districts that have shown relatively lesser progress in the key social areas and have emerged as pockets of under-development, thereby posing a challenge to ensure balanced regional development. The first delta ranking for aspirational districts was released in June 2018.