Jammu, Jan 22 (PTI) The central government's special focus on Jammu and Kashmir and the abrogation of Article 370 have led the union territory to become the first in the country to have District Good Governance Index (DGGI) to mark its achievements in the past couple of years, a senior BJP leader said on Saturday.

The DGGI was released virtually by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday, indicating that the union territory registered an increase of 3.7 per cent in good governance indicators between 2019 and 2021.

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"The focus laid on J&K by the Narendra Modi-led BJP government and the abrogation of Article 370 led J&K to become the first union territory/state in the country which can boast of having DGGI to mark its achievements in the past couple of years," BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Kavinder Gupta said in a statement here.

The Centre abrogated Jammu and Kashmir's special status under Article 370 of the Constitution in August 2019 and bifurcated the state into union territories.

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The BJP leader said Jammu and Kashmir is the maiden union territory which has acquired a DGGI to assess performance of all 20 districts in different parameters and rank them accordingly.

"It is the farsightedness of the BJP government that such revolutionary steps are being taken for ensuring good governance in the region," he said.

Gupta said that under successive governments in the past the region used to reel under dearth of basic amenities, thus the people did not have a chance to think beyond 'roti' (bread), 'kapda' (cloth) and 'makaan' (house).

He called the index a major administrative reform and a significant step to provide a robust framework for evidence-based assessment of the performance of all the districts.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)