Gomati and North Districts of Tripura shared the honour of securing jointly the second position in the first edition of the North Eastern Region (NER) District SDG Index Report and Dashboard 2021–22 released by NITI Aayog and Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (M/DoNER). The Index Report was released on Thursday.
All the districts of Tripura fall under front runner category and 7 out of total 8 districts made to the top 10 in the Index report. Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb hailed the achievement
The Index measures the performance of the districts of the eight States of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura on the Sustainable Development Goalsand their corresponding targets and ranks the districts based on the same.
Gomati and North Tripura district missed the top position by whisker. The top position went to East Sikkim with a score of 75.87 while Gomati and North Tripura scored 75.73 to secure the second position in the index. West Tripura district came in third position with a score of 75.67. Besides, Unakoti scored 73.47 to bag the 6th position while Dhalai and Sepahijala districts came in 8th position with a score of 72.60. South Tripura occupied the 9th spot with 72.40 scores.
According to a PIB press release, out of the 103 districts considered for ranking, 64 districts belonged to the Front Runner category while 39 districts were in the Performer category in the composite score and ranking of districts. All districts in Sikkim and Tripura fall in the Front Runner category and there are no districts in the Aspirant or Achiever categories.
The index offers insights into the social, economic, and environmental status of the region and its districts in their march towards achieving the SDGs. It is a unique policy tool which has immense potential to measure district level progress, highlight critical gaps, facilitate resource allocation, and will be a handy toolfor policy makers in the eight North Eastern States, Ministry of DoNER and other Union Ministries.
In a tweet, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said, “#CongratulationsTripura It gives me immense pleasure that in @NITIAayog ‘s first regional District-level #NERDistrictSDGIndex all districts of Tripura fall under front runner category. 7 out of 8 districts made to the top 10 in table with Gomati and North Tripura ranking second.
G. Kishan Reddy, Union Minister of DONER, Tourism and Culture, in his address said, “The North Eastern Region District SDG Index will help in evidence-based planning, resource allocation, both financial as well as others, and effective supervision and monitoring of the developmental efforts for focused and balanced regional development.”
In his remarks, Dr Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog stated: “The North Eastern Region District SDG Index is an important milestone in our SDG journey aimed at leaving no one behind and will strengthen SDG localization, by putting the districts, especially in our 8 Northeastern States, at the forefront of SDG adoption, implementation, and monitoring.”