A new template of development

Bijapur, along with Sukma and Dantewada, a hotbed of left wing extremism, is showing the way forward by leveraging several discretionary and budgetary allocations through innovations and convergence

“What you do in Bijapur will decide where you are headed in life,” Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh told Ayyaj Tamboli while posting him as the Collector about two years ago. For Ayyaj, the son of a government school teacher and an Anganwadi worker from rural Maharashtra, becoming the first doctor from his community may have been a great achievement in itself; he doubled it with his selection into the IAS. In his role as collector, Bijapur — a district with a population of just 255,000 deep inside Bastar — he has truly experienced the defining moment of his life. Bijapur is one of the 101 districts that the Niti Aayog identified as being the farthest behind among the 640 districts of India, in development terms.

The Prime Minister announced the launch of a transformative programme for these ‘101 Aspirational Districts’ and inaugurated the world’s largest health care programme ‘Ayushman Bharat’ in Bijapur on April 14, the 127th birth anniversary of the Father of India’s Constitution. 

Bijapur, and indeed the entire Bastar region is mineral-rich and a classic victim of the ‘resource curse’. It was an example of the vicious circle of poverty, conflict and lack of development, each feeding off the others. A Venn diagram of the various factors that contribute to backwardness would place a very high percentage of the 101 districts in the intersection of high tribal population, mining activity, left wing extremism, high forest cover and hilly terrain. It should come as no surprise that 70 of these 101 districts are from seven states (Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, MP, UP, Assam, Rajasthan). 

The reasons for backwardness may vary but there is no doubt that this focused approach to removing disparity will be a game changer. The five thematic areas for a concentrated dose of development are health, education, agriculture and water resources, basic infrastructure, and financial inclusion and skilling. This is not just about investing in infrastructure but also building capacity and sustainability of the communities without which they could easily become ‘zombie districts’, dependent and addicted to grants in perpetuity. Remarkably, this is a time-bound, data-driven and outcome-oriented exercise in which the socio-economic indicators are supposed to equal the national average by 2022. Development does not get more inclusive than this. 

Being the Prime Minister’s brainchild, this initiative is getting all the impetus it deserves. Niti Aayog, under CEO, Amitabh Kant, is also completely invested in it. The District Collector is pivotal to this programme as a single point of accountability and responsibility. And attaching each district to a ministry and a joint secretary in the Central government to help resolve issues, is also providing them the necessary cover. 

Bijapur, along with Sukma and Dantewada, a veritable hotbed of left wing extremism, is creating a new template of development for Aspirational Districts by leveraging several discretionary and budgetary allocations through innovations and convergence. The benefits of centralised planning and budgeting notwithstanding, a country of India’s diversity and disparities cannot be served by a one-size-fits-all approach. Procedural relaxations coupled with untied funds like SCA, DMF and CSR are central to this transformation. 

In the last two years Ayyaj has brought a sea change in the health indicators in Bijapur. He set about fixing every aspect of the weak medical service delivery system. He upgraded the district hospital with state-of-the-art medical equipment that even most private hospitals would be envious of. This, and the higher salaries and incentives offered through DMF funds, helped attract specialist doctors and paramedics. In under two years, the number of specialist doctors has tripled from 7 to 20. In a very short span of time, MMR has halved from 480 to 229 and IMR is down from 84 to 48. Bijapur is a role model of health care transformation. Similar transformative stories are playing out in education, skilling, livelihood and infrastructure too, all over Bastar. 

Till the 90s, Bastar was the third largest district in India at over 39,000 sq km — larger than Kerala and even some countries like Belgium and Turkey. Since then it has been divided into the present day seven districts that constitute Bastar Division. The seven mostly young district collectors, working with a unity of purpose, are collaborating on several initiatives and celebrating each other’s success. A 500-seater BPO unit has come up in Dantewada thanks to the efforts by PM awardee, Saurabh Kumar, the Dantewada Collector and Ayyaj’s IAS batch mate. The journey of BPO from Bangalore to Bastar is another seismic event, the impact of which will be felt far beyond Bastar. For the PM’s visit to Bijapur, if Ayyaj was the groom, Saurabh was his ‘best man’, assisting him with the preparations. 

It was only when a visiting journalist pointed out to me that a Muslim Collector was the most visible face for the PM’s visit, that it struck me that 3 out of 27 Collectors in Chhattisgarh are Muslim — that’s over 11 per cent in a state with a Muslim population of around 2 per cent. 

The Aspirational Districts Programme is a silent war against all that has held back these 101 districts for decades. As Bijapur is showing, a cocktail of trust, freedom, political non-interference, flexibility, delegation and financial empowerment of collectors can do wonders. What the Prime Minister announced on Saturday was not just another programme, it has the potential to permanently transform the face of rural India. A new India may be just around the corner. The writer is Principal Secretary, Government of Chhattisgarh and views expressed are his own