West Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to issue ‘appropriate instructions’ for bringing back the dropped districts of the state under the fold of “Aspirational Districts” programmes.
In a letter written to the PM, Adhir said that the dropping of the districts of West Bengal– Dakshin Dinajpur, Maldah, Murshidabad, Birbhum and Nadia–from the programme has not only brought down the number of Aspirational Districts in the country from 117 to 112 but has left the people with a sense of “despondency and hopelessness, as they are now deprived of the benefits that they, like any other, aspire for.”
The Aspirational Districts Programme ranks districts on the basis of a composite index comprising health, nutrition, education, basic infrastructure and poverty.
“The “mass movement” approach of the programme had kindled a sense of hope among the people at the grassroots level for a better life and livelihood. Depriving the people of these districts of the benefits of the programme, whose core elements include health and education and building the basic infrastructure of road connectivity, potable water and electrification, is, in my view, unreasonable by any count,” the Congress chief said.
Explaining the demographics and socio-economic conditions of Murshidabad, the Congress leader highlighted that the district covers 6 per cent of the area of the state and comprises about 8 per cent of the total population of the state.
“More significantly and strikingly, the district has the largest concentration of minority population, which is estimated to be more than 66 per cent of the total population, with the next highest concentration of minority population being in Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said, adding that depriving such a vast population of the district, who are mainly from the minority community and socio-economically backward of the fruits of the development under the Aspirational Districts Programme is not ‘appropriate’ and this needs to be corrected.
He further said that identifying and tick-marking the districts for being the beneficiaries of the Aspirational Districts programme at first and dropping them from the ‘developmental radar’ at a later stage only deprives the people of a chance to improve and better their lives.
“Programme, the people of Murshidabad as also the other 4 Districts of West Bengal that have been dropped have “aspirations” and hope to better their lives with the helping hand of the government.
Considering these facts, which have been mentioned in brief, I would urge upon you to issue appropriate instructions for bringing back the dropped districts of West Bengal under the fold of “Aspirational Districts” and help the people residing in these districts also to lead and have a better life by reaping the benefits under the programme,” he added, seeking the PM’s intervention into the matter.
Launched by the PM in January 2018, the Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP) aims to quickly and effectively transform the 112 most underdeveloped districts across the country.
