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  • Dec 15, 2022
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Panchayat Development Index

GS Paper – 2,Government Policies & Interventions
Why in the News?
● Recently, a committee has been constituted for Preparation of Panchayat Development Index (PDI) which includes members from different ministries/departments of Government of India and State Governments Local Indicators Framework on 9 themes of Localization of Sustainable Development Goals has been prepared for developing the measures of Panchayat Development Index and other SDGs progress.
● No State/ UT including Jammu & Kashmir specific local indicators are developed for formulation of PDI.
Panchayat Development Index (PDI):
● Panchayat Development Index (PDI) is a vital statistical tool to capture movement in Development at grass root level and to witness impact of centrally sponsored schemes at Panchayat level.
● The index is applicable to all Panchayats across the country.
● The index shall evaluate a base score of each Panchayat and keep stakeholders viz. District officers, PRI functionaries, frontline workers etc motivated towards improving PDI through a real time monitoring feature.
● There are 81 outcome indicators in PDI, spread over six thematic areas of Health & Nutrition, Education, Agriculture and Allied, Skill & Self Employment, Financial inclusion and Basic infrastructure with suitable weightage.
● The index is a modified version of the successful Programme TAD (transformation of Aspirational District) of NITI AYOG and 18 indicators have been used from TAD Programme having relevance to MDG (Millennium Development Goals) of United Nations.
● Fresh 63 outcome indicators have been devised after elaborative discussions with District officers & PRI functionaries.
Significance:
● Developmental indices play a key role in bridging the developmental deficit of a particular area.
● Developmental transition of countries is measured statistically with regard to outcome parameters.
● The index assigns more weight to social parameters than the infrastructure and hence rightly rejects the belief that only incurring budgetary resources can bring transformation.