India, April 9 -- The government has introduced the Panchayat Advancement Index (PAI) 2022-23 to track the progress of 250,000 gram panchayats, the rural grassroots governing bodies, combining all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into nine actionable themes, such as poverty eradication.

The United Nations adopted the SDGs in 2015 to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure peace and prosperity for all by 2030.

The PAI empowers the gram panchayats to drive sustainable change from the ground up. "...the baseline PAI 2022-23 will play a vital role in setting local targets.," said a panchayati raj ministry statement on Tuesday. It added that it would identify the development gaps through the scores achieved across nine localised t...