Lok Sabha Question No. 5634 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2022-04-06
Subject: Aspirational Districts in Bihar
Ministry: PLANNING
Asked by: Dileshwar Kamait

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF PLANNING

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 5634

TO BE ANSWERED ON 06.04.2022

## ASPIRATIONAL DISTRICTS  IN BIHAR

## †5634. SHRI DILESHWAR KAMAIT:

Will the Minister of PLANNING be pleased to state:

- (a) whether Supaul district is among the developed districts of Bihar;
- (b) if  so,  the  position  of  Supaul  district  in  terms  of  data  set  and  weightage  points  wise  in comparison to other districts for their selection under Aspirational District Programme;
- (c) the  details  of  the  data  set  and  weightage  point  of  various  districts  of  Bihar  including Supaul;
- (d) the dates on which the selection process has been carried out to select comparatively lesser developed  districts  for  their  fast  development  under  Aspirational  Districts  Programme, year-wise;
- (e) whether Supaul has also been considered under the said selection process; and
- (f) whether the Supaul is a flood prone area thereby halting its development process due to occurrence of floods every year; and
- (g) if so, the basis on which Supaul district has not been included on the said programme?

## ANSWER

MINISTER OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE) OF THE MINISTRY OF STATISTICS AND PROGRAMME IMPLEMENTATION; MINISTER OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE) OF THE MINISTRY OF PLANNING AND MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF CORPORATE AFFAIRS

## (RAO INDERJIT SINGH)

- (a) Currently, there is no provision in Niti Aayog for declaring any district as developed or otherwise.
- (b) In January 2018, NITI Aayog identified districts through a transparent process which had shown relatively  lesser  progress  in  key  socio  economic  indicators.  These  districts  were termed as the Aspirational Districts and a programme was launched to rapidly transform these districts. As per this method, eight districts selected in Bihar as Aspirational Districts had  overall  lesser  progress  than  Supaul  district  in  2018.  In  addition,  5  more  districts identified by the Ministry of Home Affairs in Bihar as districts adversely affected by the Left Wing Extremists were also termed as Aspirational Districts. Supaul did not figure in this list.  List of 13 Aspirational districts in Bihar is placed at Annexure-II .
- (c) to (d) List of data sets and the weight attached to them for selection of these districts is provided at Annexure - I .  They  are  available  in  the  public  domain.  Based  on  the  data values  as  available  in  2018,  and  weights  attached,  an  index  value  of  all  districts  in  the country  was  computed  using  a  standardised  statistical  method  to  normalise  the  data. Subsequently, based on their index values, the districts were ranked. In addition to this, 35 Districts, categorized as "most-affected" by Left Wing Extremism by Ministry of Home Affairs were also included. Further, effort was made to include at least one low-scoring District from each State. NITI Aayog shared the list of shortlisted districts with the State Governments  concerned  with  a  request  that  in  case  the  State  suggested  any  change,  it would be considered. No request for any change was received from the Government of Bihar. The selection process was finalised by January 2018.
- (e) Yes  sir.  Since  the  data  pertaining  to  all  the  districts  in  Bihar  were  examined  for shortlisting the district, Supaul District was considered while carrying out the exercise to rank districts as mentioned in (c) to (d) above.
- (f) The  district  wise  list  of  flood  prone  areas  is  not  centrally  maintained.  However,  the assessment of flood prone areas of the country  has been  carried out by  different  expert committees, and the extent of maximum area affected by floods in any year during 19532010  has  been  estimated  as  49.815  mha,  the  State-wise  break  up  of  which  is  given  at Annexure - III .
- (g) Districts shortlisted in Bihar either had shown a lesser progress in selected socio-economic indicators  than  Supaul  by  2018  or  were  more  affected  by  left  Wing  Extremism.  Hence Supaul was not selected.

*****

## Annexure - I

## List of data sets and weights used for selection of Aspirational Districts

| DATABASES                                                                                    | SECTOR                  | WEIGHT   |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------|----------|
| Landless households dependent on Manual labour (Socio Economic Caste Census - Deprivation 7) | Deprivation (25%)       | 25%      |
| Ante natal care (National Health and Family Survey (NHFS) - 4)                               | Health& Nutrition (30%) | 7.5%     |
| Institutional delivery (NHFS-4)                                                              | Health& Nutrition (30%) | 7.5%     |
| Stunting of children below 5 years (NHFS-4)                                                  | Health& Nutrition (30%) | 7.5%     |
| Wasting in children below 5 years (NHFS-4)                                                   | Health& Nutrition (30%) | 7.5%     |
| Elementary dropout rate (Unified District Information System for Education (U-DISE) 2015-16) | Education (15%)         | 7.5%     |
| Adverse pupil teacher ratio (U-DISE 2015-16)                                                 | Education (15%)         | 7.5%     |
| Un-electrified households (Ministry of Power)                                                | Education (15%)         | 7.5%     |
| Households without individual toilets (Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation)            | Infra                   | 7.5%     |
| Un-connected PMGSYvillage (Ministry of Rural Development)                                    | (30%)                   | 7.5%     |
| Rural Household without access to water (Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation)          | Education (15%)         | 7.5%     |
| Total                                                                                        |                         | 100%     |

## Annexure-II

## List of 13 Aspirational Districts of Bihar

|   S. No. | State   | District    |
|----------|---------|-------------|
|        1 | Bihar   | Sitamarhi   |
|        2 | Bihar   | Araria      |
|        3 | Bihar   | Purnia      |
|        4 | Bihar   | Katihar     |
|        5 | Bihar   | Muzaffarpur |
|        6 | Bihar   | Begusarai   |
|        7 | Bihar   | Khagaria    |
|        8 | Bihar   | Banka       |
|        9 | Bihar   | Sheikhpura  |
|       10 | Bihar   | Aurangabad  |
|       11 | Bihar   | Gaya        |
|       12 | Bihar   | Nawada      |
|       13 | Bihar   | Jamui       |

4

## Annexure- III

## The extent of  maximum area affected by floods in any year during 1953-2010 as per the Working Group Report on Flood Management and Region-Specific Issues for XII Plan

| S. No.   | State                    | Max. Area affected (million ha)   |
|----------|--------------------------|-----------------------------------|
| 1        | Andhra Pradesh*          | 9.040                             |
| 2        | Arunachal Pradesh        | 0.207                             |
| 3        | Assam                    | 3.820                             |
| 4        | Bihar                    | 4.986                             |
| 5        | Chhattisgarh             | 0.089                             |
| 6        | Delhi                    | 0.458                             |
| 7        | Goa                      | 0.000                             |
| 8        | Gujarat                  | 2.050                             |
| 9        | Haryana                  | 1.000                             |
| 10       | Himachal Pradesh         | 2.870                             |
| 11       | Jammu &Kashmir           | 0.514                             |
| 12       | Jharkhand                | 0.000                             |
| 13       | Karnataka                | 0.900                             |
| 14       | Kerala                   | 1.470                             |
| 15       | Madhya Pradesh           | 0.377                             |
| 16       | Maharashtra              | 0.391                             |
| 17       | Manipur                  | 0.080                             |
| 18       | Meghalaya                | 0.095                             |
| 19       | Mizoram                  | 0.541                             |
| 20       | Nagaland                 | 0.009                             |
| 21       | Orissa                   | 1.400                             |
| 22       | Punjab                   | 2.790                             |
| 23       | Rajasthan                | 3.260                             |
| 24       | Sikkim                   | 1.170                             |
| 25       | Tamil Nadu               | 1.466                             |
| 26       | Tripura                  | 0.330                             |
| 27       | Uttar Pradesh            | 7.340                             |
| 28       | Uttarakhand              | 0.002                             |
| 29       | West Bengal              | 3.080                             |
| 30       | Andaman &Nicobar Islands | 0.030                             |
| 31       | Chandigarh               | -                                 |
| 32       | Dadra &Nagar Haveli      | -                                 |
| 33       | Daman &Diu               | -                                 |
| 34       | Lakshadweep              | -                                 |
| 35       | Puducherry               | 0.050                             |
|          | Total                    | 49.815                            |