In January 2018, The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, launched the ‘Transformation of Aspirational Districts’ programme to adopt focused interventions in the selected 117 districts from all over India. Reflecting the spirit of cooperative federalism, the programme intends to facilitate development through centre, state and district levels of government. Simultaneously, by challenging the people of different districts to compete with each other, the programme exercises competitive federalism as well. Above all, the programme hopes to emerge as a model of inclusive development, reaching out to the antyodaya, the weakest segments of the population.
VHAI conducted a systematic field research to understand the present state of Aspirational Districts Programme. The objective behind this voluntary effort was to prepare a consolidated and comprehensive report so that our evidence backed recommendations can contribute to the improvement of the ambitious programme on the ground. The focus of the study was to understand the overall functioning of Aspirational District Programme, document the best/innovative practices and challenges faced by the Districts in achieving their goals and highlight the discrepancies if any. The duration of the study by VHAI was four months. The feedback VHAI received from the various Districts along with the direct observations from the field could become valuable assets in further polishing the programme at policy making and implementation level and could also be beneficial to other Aspirational Districts.
