How many districts of Uttar Pradesh has been covered under the Aspirational District Programme run by NITI Aayog, up to June, 2021 ?

The correct answer is C) 8. NITI Aayog launched the Aspirational Districts Programme in January 2018 to rapidly improve social and economic indicators in 112 backward districts across 28 States and UTs. Uttar Pradesh had 8 of these districts, namely Sonbhadra, Chandauli, Mahrajganj, Siddharthnagar, Balrampur, Shrawasti, Lalitpur and Chitrakoot.

The other options are wrong because the count is not 4, 6 or 10. Aspirants often guess a higher number because UP is the most populous state, but the programme selected districts on the basis of backwardness across health, education, agriculture, financial inclusion and basic infrastructure, not population. The core concept here is cooperative federalism and the 'delta ranking' model of monitoring, where districts compete on measured outcomes. For Mains, this connects to GS-II on government schemes and to regional disparities in human development.

Note that the programme was later extended to blocks, the Aspirational Blocks Programme launched in 2023 covering 500 blocks, so the district-level scheme is now a precursor to that.

Trap: confusing the Aspirational Districts list with the Aspirational Blocks list or with other lists of backward districts such as the NITI Aayog or Backward Regions Grant Fund lists.