WCD Ministry and NITI Aayog planning to rank states on basis of implementation of schemes

The Women and Child Development Ministry, in collaboration with NITI Aayog, is planning to rank states on the basis of their performance in implementing various schemes related to women and children, officials said.

The WCD Ministry has suggested the move to improve the performance of states in implementing the programmes of the Centre, officials said.

A senior official said that ranking of child care institutions will also be done in the states and union territories to improve their performance.

"We are in talks with NITI Aayog to develop a protocol for evaluating the performance of states and union territories in implementing various schemes related to women and children," the official said.

Sources say that the performance of states has not been up to the mark with respect to policies related to women and children and the Centre wants to increase the participation and that is why they are planning the move.

"We hope that by developing a healthy competitive spirit the performance of states in participating in these schemes improves," the official said.

Earlier, the Women and Child Development Ministry has expressed concern over the slow roll-out of different activities under the Poshan Abhiyaan (nutrition mission) and urged states and union territories to ensure targets are achieved.

At the seventh meeting of the executive committee of the Poshan Abhiyaan held last month, WCD ministry secretary Rabindra Panwar urged states to ensure timely utilisation of funds allocated to them as most states had poor utilisation in the 2018-19 fiscal.

He also asked the states and union territories that they were required to carry out a detailed review, assessment and gap analysis on an urgent basis of the scheme, according to the minutes of the meeting.