J&K Tops Among States/UTs to Achieve Significant Growth in Aspirational Districts, Towns, Blocks & Panchayats

Aside from that, J&K is the only state in the country to follow this developmental path and create the Panchayat Development Index, Block Development Index, and City Development Index in tandem to achieve the pace of rapid development and growth.

Furthermore, the J&K administration has created a third component in the form of 1,250 deliverables through which achievement in implementing various government schemes and welfare measures is accelerated and monitored.

In collaboration with NITI Aayog, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), and the United Nations Development Programme, the Planning Development and Monitoring Department recently organized a UT-wide workshop on Sustainable Development Goals for Jammu and Kashmir.

Speaking on occasion, Chief Secretary Dr. Arun Kumar Mehta described the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a powerful tool for measuring development in general and sustainable development in particular and added that governments must measure development to improve further.

"If we do not measure development, we do not improve. It is only anecdotal if we do not measure consistently. "The SDG tool will be a potent tool for measuring development in general, and sustainable development in particular," he said, directing departments to use the SDG mechanism to chart a course through 2030. The Sustainable Development Goals, also known as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, are a global agreement signed in 2015 by India and over 190 countries.

It consists of 17 Goals and 169 global targets spanning social, economic, and environmental dimensions. In India, NITI Aayog, in close collaboration with the MoSPI, monitors progress toward global goals at the national, state, and union territory levels.

The SDGs have shifted the focus to development outcomes rather than financial expenditure and physical progress. In technical collaboration with UNDP, the UT of Jammu and Kashmir and NITI Aayog have agreed to establish a Sustainable Development Goals Coordination Centre (SDGCC) at the Planning, Development, and Monitoring Department.

The collaboration will work to improve J&K's monitoring system, derive actionable insights from data analytics, promote gap-based targeting, and build capacities. It is worth noting that J&K has been a frontrunner at UT in most sectors, including health, agriculture production, education, renewable energy, providing civic amenities, increasing forest cover, and ensuring gender equality, particularly in the last two years.