UP has 25% of country's districts that lag in social indices: Amitabh Kant

Over one-fourth of 201 districts where India fails in education, health and nutrition fronts are located in Uttar Pradesh alone, followed by Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Tuesday.

"If you look at 201 districts in India where we fail..., 53 are in Uttar Pradesh, 36 in Bihar and about 18 in Madhya Pradesh," Kant said at the launch of preliminary findings of Young Lives India's longitudinal survey on nutrition, childhood poverty, education, and youth and employment.

"My view is that unless you name and shame, it'll be very difficult for India to grow. Good governance must become good politics," Kant said.

Kant had earlier said that seven to eight states in eastern India were responsible for "holding back" the nation and there was a need to "name and shame" them.

"There is no problem with South India, there is no problem with West India. It's like the eastern part of India - seven states and the 201 districts - unless you transform them, India will never get transformed," the NITI Aayog CEO said here.

Kant added that availability of real-time data, very close monitoring and ranking of states in public domain hold the key.

"And naming and shaming -- because the politicians and the civil servants must realise that they will be penalised. If you are not able to perform in health, education and nutrition, you must be voted out," Kant said.

"And the minute that starts happening in India, everything will fall into place."

He said that unless India has real-time data where one can compare the performance of one district with another, it won't be possible to work efficiently.

"Half the times, administrators are doing things without current data. And therefore you are taking policy decisions without clear data," Kant said adding the NITI Aayog was working in the direction of collecting real-time data and putting it in the public domain.