NITI Aayog Hosts Virtual Roundtable on “Aspirational Districts Forum” – Kashmir Reader
BARAMULLA: In a bid to provide a platform where officials can deliberate and discuss different ways and modalities to scale socio-economic development indicators, the country’s largest think tank, NITI Aayog, has organized a virtual roundtable today under the banner “Aspirational Districts Forum”, in which Deputy Commissioner Baramulla Bhupinder Kumar participated.
Bhupinder Kumar was the only J&K UT representative and the only deputy commissioner among all the DCs in the country. He was specially invited to the event as Baramulla district recorded overwhelming and outstanding performance in subsequent NITI Aayog delta rankings three times.
At the start, CEO Amitabh Kant delivered the keynote address in which he outlined several policy goals envisioned under the Aspirational Districts program. He welcomed all the participants besides warmly applauding and appreciating DC Baramulla for excelling and recording wonderful performances among all the ambitious districts in the country.
Bhupinder Kumar, in his address, gave a detailed overview of the development journey of Baramulla District and shared his valuable experience while achieving milestones in public service delivery that have enabled the district to stand at the pinnacle of competitive federalism .
While presenting his valuable suggestions and feedback for achieving development-oriented results, the DC also highlighted some issues and challenges facing the pace of development. He added that there is an urgent need to upgrade basic infrastructure in government health facilities as people largely prefer the private sector for primary and secondary health care services. He further stated that it has increased personal expenditure which has serious implications on the marginal and weaker sections of society.
The Deputy Commissioner also provided an overview of the development profile, particularly in the health and other vital sectors, and said that better results have been achieved through a collaborative approach among various stakeholders. He said Rs 16 Crore has been provided to the district as an incentive grant which has been widely used to upgrade basic infrastructure impacting the livelihoods of ordinary people.
Others who took part in the roundtable included Srikrishna Sridhar Murthy, co-founder and CEO of Sattva Consulting; Sourav Roy, Head of CSR, Tata Steel and Head, Tata Steel Foundations; Manmohan Singh, Aspirational Districts Collaboration Manager; Prabhakar Lingareddy, Executive Vice President and Head, Social Investments ITC LTD; Reema Mohan, CEO, National Stock Exchange and Tushara Shankar, CSR Manager, Lupine Ltd.
