Editorial 1: Aspirational Blocks Programme: Building blocks of Viksit Bharat
Context:
- Karnataka and Tamil Nadu border shared border situated inside the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary lies an Adivasi hamlet in the Sulthan Bathery block of district Wayanad in Kerala
- Owing to the geographical location, the region remains reachable only by foot. The district uses mobile medical units, a van with a tribal medical officer, an ASHA volunteer, and a public health nurse to provide medical services.
- Medical camps were set up to ensure that residents are screened for any conditions, provided with medicines, and counselling.
- Like Sulthan Bathery, geographical remoteness and other factors have deprived many such pockets across India of socioeconomic development.
- But now there is hope. Sulthan Bathery is one of the blocks selected by the state of Kerala to improve government service delivery under the Aspirational Blocks Programme.
Recent Context:
- During the Second National Conference of Chief Secretaries, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Aspirational Blocks Programme (ABP).
- This transformational programme focuses on improving governance to enhance the quality of life of citizens in the most difficult and underdeveloped blocks of India by converging existing schemes, defining outcomes, and monitoring them on a constant basis.
- The ABP is built on the noteworthy success of the government’s flagship Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP) launched in 2018 across 112 under-developed districts of India.
About Aspirational Blocks Programme (ABP):
- An inter-ministerial committee in consultation with states had identified 500 blocks from across 28 states and four Union territories.
- In each of them, the ABP will focus on monitoring 15 key socio-economic indicators (KSIs) categorised under major sectors namely,
- Health and nutrition,
- Education,
- Agriculture and water resources,
- Financial inclusion and skill development,
- Basic infrastructure and social development.
- These themes were selected for facilitating holistic development of every block with states having the flexibility to include additional state-specific KSIs to address local challenges.
- The KSIs will be tracked on a real-time basis and periodic rankings will be released across key thematic areas to foster a healthy and dynamic competition among the blocks to encourage data-driven governance
- The focus on blocks echoes the historic importance of blocks or development blocks introduced in 1952 to provide for a substantial increase in the country’s agricultural programme, and for improvements in systems of communication, in rural health and hygiene, and in rural education.
- Development blocks ensure that a larger than proportionate share of development reaches the marginalised and vulnerable sections of the population by building social and economic infrastructure.
- As an administrative and monitoring unit, the block ensures that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is not applied to every part of the country.
- Instead, the block administration can adopt customised approaches towards improving socioeconomic indicators based on the context of the region and the most emergent needs. This method also brings the decision-making process closer to the grass roots.
Making block development as “Jan Andolans”:
- The ADP has shown that if development is taken as a “Jan Andolan” and progress of a district is constantly monitored, success would follow.
- In the last five years, many aspirational districts have bettered their performance, across several indicators, than the state average values.
- For example, Paschimi Singbhum, a district in Jharkhand and a left-wing extremism-affected area, has raised registration of pregnant women within the first trimester from just 39 per cent in 2018 to 91 per cent in 2022.
- Districts such as Gumla in Jharkhand, Karauli in Rajasthan, Namsai in Arunachal Pradesh, and Dhalai in Tripura have increased the percentage of institutional deliveries from around 40 per cent to more than 90 per cent.
- There are other success stories like deploying self help groups in rural Ranchi to promote financial inclusion and financial literacy using UPI and BHIM apps, supporting local residents and frontline workers in Barwani (Madhya Pradesh) with additional incentives to ensure that pregnant women reach the public health institution for ante-natal and post-natal care, and completely digitising court services to improve speed and access to justice in rural Osmanabad (Maharashtra)
Budgetary support to Aspirational developmental programme:
- On February 1, 2022, the finance minister in her Union Budget speech mentioned that 95 per cent of 112 aspirational districts have made significant progress in major indicators such as health, nutrition, financial inclusion, and skill development.
- However, she also highlighted that some blocks continue to under-perform. The reasons for this can be multi-layered — difficult terrain, lack of resources, historical injustice, social marginalisation and community vulnerability, among others.
Way forward:
- The ABP will result to address exiting inequalities by improving governance and last mile service delivery at the block level.
- As key drivers of this initiative, states are expected to guide, support, review and build capacity of relevant officers to drive progress under this programme.
- Under the leadership of the district administration, the officers at the block level will improve critical last mile service delivery. They will focus on improving the infrastructure at the block level to aid social welfare development.
- Several line departments of the block administration will converge and work in unison to bridge critical administrative gaps and sustain these developments and improvements for a long period of time.
- This holistic development will positively catalyse economic development. This will also aid the achievement of critical targets identified under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and enable the blocks to contribute to India’s GDP.
- The programme strives to protect the rights and uphold the dignity of every single citizen by increasing their awareness and enhancing access to government schemes. It also provides a common platform for all block administrations to showcase their best practices and learnings.
Editorial 2: World Economic Forum’s 2023 Davos: Here are the major takeaways
Recent Context:
- Recently, World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2023, held in the Swiss town of Davos. The theme this year was ‘Cooperation in a Fragmented World’
- On the economy front, there was cautious optimism, with many seeming to believe the worst was behind them. On climate, there was much talk but little action.
Some key takeaways from WEF Davos 2023
On the economy
- Most business leaders were positive about the economy, with US and the European Union (EU) seemingly beyond the risk of a recession now.
- China ending its zero Covid curbs and opening its economy again added to the positive outlook. Indeed, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He made a strong pitch about his country’s opening up, saying a “noticeable increase of import, more investment by companies, and consumption returning back to normal can be expected” in 2023.
- “If we work hard enough, we are confident that in 2023, China’s growth will most likely return to its normal trend,” Liu said in his address on January 17
- It is also considered that China opening up could mean a rise in its energy consumption, thereby driving up energy prices.
- However, central banks of the major economies cautioned that concerns still remained, and said they would keep interest rates high to ensure inflation is under check.
- The US Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard was quoted as reminding investors that “inflation remains high, and policy will need to be sufficiently restrictive for some time.
On Ukraine
- Ukraine kept up its demand for more military aid to fight its war against Russia, and more financial aid to rebuild after the war, saying the reconstruction fund commitments should start coming in now and not after the war ends.
- “The more we do now, the less we will have to do in reconstruction,” Odile Françoise Renaud-Basso, President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), said, as quoted by Reuters.
- While Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave a video address, made an indirect criticism of the US and Germany dithering over sending tanks to his country.
- “There are times where we shouldn’t hesitate or we shouldn’t compare when someone says, ‘I will give tanks if someone else will also share his tanks,’” Zelenskyy was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Climate
- World leaders agreed upon the need for green energy and the need for more money to flight climate change.
- According to the WEF’s website, “The World Economic Forum, supported by more than 45 partners launched the Giving to Amplify Earth Action (GAEA), a global initiative to fund and grow new and existing public, private and philanthropic partnerships (PPPPs) to help unlock the $3 trillion of financing needed each year to reach net zero, reverse nature loss and restore biodiversity by 2050.”
- Greta Thunberg and other activists organised a protest, with slogans such as “There is no planet B” and “Fossil fuels have got to go.” Pakistan brought up the issue of a loss and damage fund for the developing countries.
- The EU raised concerns over a US green energy law that benefits products, such as electric vehicles, made in America.
- But West Virginia senator Joe Manchin said the idea was not to hurt any other country but to benefit the environment. “You better be able to do it quicker, faster and better than any place in the world and then share it with your friends. That’s what we’re going to do,” Manchin, a Democrat, said.
Projects launched
- Press Trust of India (PTI) reported that more than 50 “high-impact initiatives” was launched at the event.
- Maharashtra Institution for Transformation (MITRA) signed a partnership with the forum on urban transformation to give the state government “strategic and technical direction”
- The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations (CEPI) aims to develop new vaccines for future pandemics.
Conclusion
- WEF provides a platform for developed and developing nations to talk about poverty alleviation and climate action which often came under criticism. However, others pointed out that despite its flaws, the conference is an opportunity for many decision-makers to meet and interact with each other.
- As the Economist editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes put it, while the talks at Davos can be described as “highly-caffeinated speed dating”, more conversation and communication is better than less contact and less communication.