PM Modi project to transform 115 backward districts

New Delhi: In what could be billed as Narendra Modi government’s major social initiative prior to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Prime Minister is set to unveil a  project aimed at improving development parameters of 115 backward districts, on January 5, 2018. Titled “Transformation of New India 2022,” which will focus on improving these districts on parameters like health, agriculture and education, it has been conceived by the PMO and a significant allocation is likely to be announced for it in the forthcoming Union Budget, which would be the final one for the NDA regime.

Highly placed sources told this newspaper that the Government with its eyes set on the Lok Sabha elections, is keen to give agriculture, rural distress and social sectors a major push, and the Transformation of New India programme is a step towards that direction. This newspaper had exclusively reported on November 6 about this project, wherein a national dashboard will be set up of these 115 backward districts. It will be a database with numerical details of five major development parameters of these districts like health, education, sanitation, financial inclusion, and agriculture.

On the basis of this data, measures will be taken to improve basic necessities in these districts to bring them back into the social mainstream.

The district magistrates (DMs) of these 115 districts have been made ‘prabhari’ (incharge) officers who will be empowered to use funds up to Rs 10 crore each to come up with innovative ideas to improve the development parameters.