By Satish Jha
As India sets its sights on becoming a developed nation by 2047, the centenary of Independence, few questions are as consequential as this: how will development actually reach those who have been waiting the longest? Not in speeches, dashboards, or pilot projects—but in lived capability, dignity, and agency. The Government of India, through NITI Aayog, deserves credit for recognising this challenge early. The Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP), launched in 2018, and its successor, the Aspirational Blocks Programme (ABP), represent an important shift in thinking.
They acknowledge that national averages conceal deep local deprivation, and that progress must be geographically targeted, outcome-oriented, and data-informed.
By identifying 112 districts and later 500 blocks that lag on key indicators—health, nutrition, education, agriculture, financial inclusion, infrastructure—the state has attempted to focus attention where it matters most.
Yet recognition is not resolution. After decades of well-intentioned interventions, a hard truth remains: most government programmes designed to support the poorest Indians are poorly designed for the complexity of development itself. They often confuse activity with progress, management with transformation, and speed with sustainability.
This is where corporate social responsibility—if reimagined seriously—can play a decisive role.
One of the central weaknesses of India’s development architecture lies in the uncritical import of business metrics into social transformation. Targets, dashboards, rankings, and timelines—useful in operating enterprises—have come to dominate welfare and development programmes.
But development is not a quarterly result.
It is slow, non-linear, and deeply human. It does not respond well to metrics that prioritise administrative convenience over lived outcomes. Too often, success is measured in terms of funds spent, assets created, sessions conducted, or beneficiaries enrolled—rather than whether a child can actually read with comprehension, whether a young adult can reason, adapt, and aspire, or whether a village has the collective capability to solve its own problems.
The Aspirational Districts and Blocks framework speaks of “outcomes,” but in practice, measurement frequently slips back into managerial proxies. What gets measured is what is easy to count, not what truly counts. Learning becomes enrollment. Health becomes service delivery. Livelihood becomes short-term skilling.
CSR programmes, when they mirror this logic, merely add parallel lanes to the same flawed highway, not recognising that development Is not a Quick Fix—and never was.
India has, metaphorically, been “boiling the water of development” since 1947. Schemes have multiplied, budgets have expanded, institutions have been created. And yet, for large sections of the population, the water has never quite reached boiling point.
The reason is not lack of effort. It is misunderstanding of critical mass.
Water does not boil at 40 or 60 degrees, no matter how long it is heated. It boils at 100 degrees. Development works the same way. Unless a threshold of capability, participation, and institutional strength is crossed, progress remains cosmetic.
Too many programmes—governmental and CSR alike—spread themselves thinly across geographies, sectors, and beneficiaries. They improve indicators at the margins without creating the density of change required to make progress irreversible. Aspirational areas, by definition, require concentration, not dispersion.
The shift from districts to blocks under ABP is a step in the right direction. But even the block may be too large a unit. The next frontier of meaningful development may well be the village—or even the citizen.
At the heart of India’s development challenge lies a simple but uncomfortable truth: we have focused more on delivering schemes than on evolving citizens.
The weakest citizen—poorly educated, poorly nourished, poorly informed—remains the system’s greatest blind spot. Most programmes assume a passive beneficiary, not an active learner. They aim to provide services, not to build agency.
Education illustrates this failure starkly. Schooling in aspirational areas often forces children into alien curricula, disconnected from their context, aspirations, or capabilities. Learning is reduced to exam-oriented cramming that measures recall, not understanding; compliance, not curiosity.
The result is tragic but predictable: years spent in school without genuine learning; certificates without confidence; skills without adaptability.
CSR investments in education frequently replicate this pattern—smart classrooms without smart pedagogy, digital content without cognitive grounding, assessments that reward memorisation rather than mastery.
If development is to endure, the focus must shift decisively from schooling to learning, from coverage to capability, from inputs to outcomes that matter in real life.
In recent years, skilling has emerged as a preferred solution for employment and livelihoods, especially in aspirational geographies. While skilling has a role—particularly for immediate income—it is not a substitute for foundational capability.
Skilling prepares individuals for yesterday’s jobs, not tomorrow’s uncertainty. It taps only a narrow slice of human potential and often locks individuals into low-agency trajectories. Without strong foundations in literacy, numeracy, reasoning, communication, and adaptability, skills age quickly.
Aspirational India does not need just employable citizens. It needs capable citizens—people who can learn continuously, adapt to change, participate meaningfully in democracy, and contribute creatively to the economy.
CSR that focuses only on skilling risks producing fast outputs but fragile outcomes.
Another persistent error in development thinking is the belief that a few well-chosen programmes can unlock transformation. In reality, development is inherently multipronged.
Education without health falters. Livelihood without learning stagnates. Infrastructure without institutions decays. Technology without human capability amplifies inequality.
The Aspirational Districts and Blocks Programme recognises this in theory through its multi-sectoral framework. But implementation often fragments into silos—each department, partner, or CSR initiative operating independently, optimising its own metrics.
What is missing is local architecture: a coherent, place-based design that integrates education, health, livelihoods, governance, and culture into a shared developmental trajectory.
Such architecture cannot be centrally imposed. It must be locally imagined, locally led, and locally owned.
Few ideas have been as enthusiastically embraced—and as superficially implemented—as the concept of “smart villages.” Too often, smartness is equated with devices, dashboards, or connectivity.
But villages do not become smart because technology arrives. They become smart when people become capable of using knowledge, making choices, solving problems, and leading collectively.
The first infrastructure that needs upgrading is not digital—it is learning infrastructure. This includes not just schools, but community learning spaces, teacher capacity, local mentors, and pathways for lifelong learning.
CSR is uniquely positioned to invest here, not as charity but as nation-building. If CSR is to matter on the road to 2047, it must evolve from project funding to developmental partnership.
This means:
1. Aligning with NITI Aayog’s Aspirational Blocks, but resisting the temptation to chase rankings or quick wins.
2. Choosing depth over breadth, committing to fewer geographies but staying long enough to cross critical mass.
3. Placing the citizen at the centre, especially the weakest—designing programmes that evolve capability, not dependency.
4. Redefining measurement, focusing on learning outcomes, cognitive growth, agency, and institutional resilience rather than activity counts.
5. Architecting locally, co-creating development pathways with district administrations, panchayats, educators, and community leaders.
6. Investing in leadership, because no development trajectory survives without local champions.
CSR must bring not just money, but skills, patience, governance discipline, and humility.
The genius of the term “aspirational” lies in its recognition of desire—the desire of people and places to do better. But aspiration without capability breeds frustration.
India’s task over the next two decades is to convert aspirational districts, blocks, villages, and citizens into able ones.
That journey cannot be rushed. It cannot be managed like a business operation. It must be cultivated—carefully, locally, and ethically.
Government has laid the groundwork by identifying where attention is most needed. CSR now has the opportunity—and responsibility—to shape how that attention translates into lasting change.
Viksit Bharat 2047 will not be built by schemes alone. It will be built when the weakest Indian becomes a confident learner, an informed citizen, and an active participant in the nation’s future.
That is not a CSR obligation. It’s a shared national project!
Disclaimer: Satish Jha was speaking at the 17th India CSR Summit 2026, themed “CSR for Aspirational Blocks Development: Vision, Action and Collaboration,” exploring how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can help transform Aspirational Blocks into self-reliant, thriving, and sustainable communities. The Summit featured corporate leaders, development experts, NGOs, and government representatives to turn vision into action and partnerships into measurable impact.
About the Author
Satish Jha co‑founded Jansatta for the Indian Express Group and served as Editor of Dinamaanat The Times of India. Later, he helped bring the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project to India and now works with schools to introduce simple, affordable technologies—what he calls a “cellphone of education”—to support learning in more than 50 K‑12 institutions.
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