Namsai district’s achievement of capturing the first position in Education amongst 117 aspirational districts in the country must be a great news to cheer for the people of Arunachal Pradesh and is perhaps a suitable antithesis to the prevalent notion that nothing really happens here and more because, the honour has come in a sector which is perceived to be suffering from acute ailments. The success has further pointed and actually endorsed the age-old adage that ‘where there is a will, there is a way’.

The Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP) which was launched last year in January is probably the first of its kind welfare endeavour since independence when there is an humble admission on part of the government that there are certain pockets in the country where fruits of development hasn’t reached in desired proportions and need immediate rectification. ADP stands out in the crowd of developmental initiatives as it has imbibed the core principle of speed in transformation of these very backward districts, a welcome break from the hard truth that schemes hardly reach beyond  snail’s pace. Further, it tries to focus on five fundamental aspects which forms the progressive ethos of any developing nation- health & nutrition, education, agriculture & water resources, financial inclusion & skill development and basic infrastructure. It has also been termed as an effective instrument of fostering cooperative federalism as although it is directed by NITI Aayog from Delhi, it is practically driven by the states in an environment where central & state schemes synchronize with each other, officials from both sides function as a team, thereby ushering in an atmosphere of healthy competition among these districts. There is also an underlying principle to this programme which stresses on prudent utilization of the existing resources, without pumping in fat packages of funds, but rather leveraging them to the optimum level. In other words, the intention is to spend better instead of spending more, thus saving the resources from draining out to several undesired destinations. And keeping in tune with the reality that world is fast meandering towards a data-centric existence, ADP has been devised as an entirely data-driven one with facility for constant monitoring of progress by public, thus ensuring the much required aspects of transparency and accountability.

Success has come in education and now there should be an extra urge for Namsai to repeat the feat in other aforesaid aspects also. It would be possible, if and only if there is repetition of this steadfastness displayed in tandem by the three main players i.e. centre, state and district administration.

It is an inspirational feat worth aspiring by the entire state.