New Delhi, July 21 -- One of the key tasks of public policy is to create structures and institutions which bridge the gap between policy and implementation. This is especially critical at the state and local level where institutional capacity constraints may sometimes lead to shortcomings in implementation which can create limitations for even well thought-out policy.

To overcome such constraints, India's government has spearheaded innovative solutions like the Aspirational Districts and Aspirational Blocks programmes (ADP and ABP), under which districts and blocks are encouraged to catch up with the best performing districts and blocks in their states.

This is accomplished through measuring improvement on key performance indicators tha...