A Correspondent
DHUBRI: Dhubri, one of the 117 inspirational districts in the country, achieved a rare distinction recently by topping among the seven districts in Assam in the field of financial inclusion and skill development. This was revealed by the Chief Executive Officer, Niti Aayog, Amitabh Kant in a three-day meeting held at Khanapara Administrative Staff College auditorium from February 24.
Kant congratulated Dhubri Deputy Commissioner Anant Lal Gyani for the remarkable achievement and advised him to carry forward the momentum further in other fields too in the days to come. Dhubri has achieved 100 percent in financial inclusion while 90 percent in skill development while another district, Darrang ranked as best performing aspirational district in the Northeast.
Officials of Niti Ayog informed that a total of 14 districts of north-eastern States were included in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aspirational district project, of which seven districts -Dhubri, Goalpara, Barpeta, Darang, Udalguri, Baksa and Hailakandi were from Assam alone.
Rest seven districts are Namsai of Arunachal Pradesh, Chandel of Manipur, Ribhoi of Meghalaya, Mamit of Mizoram, Kiphire of Nagaland, Dhalai of Tripura and West Sikkim district of Sikkim.
The rankings took into account incremental progress made by over 112 aspirational districts across six developmental areas in December 2019. Health and nutrition, education, agriculture, and water resources, financial inclusion, skill development, and basic infrastructure were the development areas that were taken into consideration for the ranking, they added.
Aspirational districts program, launched in January 2018, aims to transform districts that showed relatively lesser progress in key social areas and emerged as pockets of under-development in the ranking of aspirational districts which is done every month.
Talking to The Sentinel, Deputy Commissioner Anant Lal Gyani said the success in the field of financial inclusion and skill development could have been possible only due to the tireless efforts of all banking officials and active participation of official in skill development.
Gyani informed that the Government of India had launched a drive to saturate all eligible farmers of the country under KCC. “Apart from agriculture and farming activities, additional features under the PM KCC this time also include livestock and fisheries too. We fixed a tentative target to reach out to 1.52 lakh beneficiaries, of which 32,654 KCC beneficiaries are already there in the district who are actively operating”, Gyani informed.
Gyani said that Dhubri district also topped in the State by opening the highest number of Jan Dhan accounts and total figure of accounts was 12,8,804, so PM KCC sanctioned amount would be directly credited to the accounts of the beneficiaries.