Data crucial for success of Aspirational Block Programme: Niti Aayog CEO

Niti Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam on Thursday said data is crucial for the success of the Aspirational Block Programme (ADP) and stressed the need of making it visually available to help decision-making.

Addressing an event here, Subrahmanyam further said through the implementation of the Aspirational Block Programme, the goal of the government is to saturate the 500 blocks, with every development initiative that the government of India is implementing.

Data is very very crucial for the success of the Aspirational Block Programme. There is a need to make data visually available to aid decision-making," he said.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Aspirational Block Programme on the lines of a similar exercise aimed at developing backward districts.

Launched in 2018, ADP (Aspirational District Programme) aims to transform 112 districts that have shown relatively lesser progress in key social areas.

Subrahmanyam noted that ADP brought stability in the tenures of officials in aspirational districts, attention and focus, which is replicated in the Aspirational Block Programme.

Noting that managing 500 blocks centrally is not physically possible or desirable, he said the onus now shifts from the Centre to states.

"The point is we are taking development down to block level. We have chosen 500 blocks on a very very normative basis.

"...we are actually touching more than half of India," he asserted.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech had said 500 blocks of the country have been covered under the programme to improve their socio-economic status.