Three towns in Bihar — Katihar, Gaya and Muzaffarpur — have been ranked on top of the list of aspirational districts classified by the Niti Aayog for their performance on the basis of delta score for the month ending February this year.
Khagaria managed to get on the 7th position with composite score of 46.6 in February, which is awarded to each aspirational district for their transformation on monthly basis.
Deputy chief minister Tarkishore Prasad, who is also minister of the urban development department, said that 13 districts of Bihar had improved their performance in transformational sector and thereby managed to be included among the 100 out of 112 districts. “Majority of the districts will undergo major change in terms of urban amenities and other infrastructures and scale up remarkably in the next ranking of the Niti Aayog,” said Prasad.
Katihar, which also happens to be the home district of the deputy CM, got the delta score of 3.705 and comprehensive score of 55.9 on different aspects of development and stood on the top. Likewise, Gaya and Muzaffarpur received delta score of 3.405 and 3.112 and overall score of 48 and 52.5 got the 2nd and 3rd position respectively.
Bihar joins elite club for Budget spending
Prasad hosted a “laddu” party for the staff and officials the finance department on Thursday to celebrate a remarkable feat of spending more than ₹2 lakh crore in the 2021-22 fiscal, which ended today.
“It’s a matter of privilege for the state to have entered the club of top five major states, which spending exceeded ₹2 lakh crore this fiscal,” said Prasad, who also holds the finance department.
Bihar had total budge size of ₹2.18 lakh crore for the fiscal 2021-22 and the state government managed to increase the annual spending this fiscal by 21% as compared to the last year.
Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are the other states, which could spend more than ₹2 lakh this fiscal. Bihar managed to achieve this feat owing to robust financial management that offset the impact of Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent slowdown in all round activities.