Wayanad, May 3 (Agency) Though Wayanad has been included in the Aspirational District programme by the Union Government, it has not fared well and needed to do more work to achieve better results, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani said on Tuesday. Earlier in the day, she held a review meeting with the officers of the District Administration at Kalpetta. The Union Minister said that citizens were not satisfactorily receiving state support and subsidies with regard to challenges like health, nutrition, education and infrastructure and also opportunities in fields like agriculture, skill development and financial services. She said the systems were not competitive enough to deliver the constitutional rights of citizens. Irani said under the Aspirational District programme, there have been concerted efforts at the national, state and district administration levels across the country to ensure that the living standards of citizens are enhanced and infrastructure is strengthened and developed and services such as education, nutrition, financial schemes and skill development programmes are effectively delivered to the citizens.
The Minister said that in the last two months, she has had the privilege of visiting two aspirational districts – Fatehpur in UP and Wayanad in Kerala. She said that Fatehpur was earlier ranked at the 111th position under the programme. But today, it was at the 8th position. There has been a constant effort by the state government and the district administration there to improve the ranking by enhancing services and strengthening infrastructure, added the Minister. She said that she was particularly delighted when the district administration informed her that Central PSUs were using their CSR funds to support some projects in Wayanad. Irani visited the Varadoor Smart Anganwadi constructed using CSR fund. The Union Minister also visited the Ambalachal tribal colony and Maravayal tribal settlement and interacted with the tribal families. She also visited Ponnada Anganwadi and the One Stop Centre at Kalpetta.