Saansad Aadarsh Gram Yojana: Nitin Gadkari urges MPs to finalise their village under scheme

NEW DELHI: Rural development minister Nitin Gadkari has shot off a letter to all Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs urging them to immediately finalise the village they intend to adopt under the Saansad Aadarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY).
"At this juncture, we need to immediately identify the gram panchayat to be taken up for transformation into ‘adarsh gram’. The identification of one GP to be developed into a model GP by 2016 is required to be completed within one month from the date of launch i.e. by November 11 positively and communicated to the district collector under intimation to the state rural development secretary and the Centre,"Gadkari has said in his letter sent to over 800 MPs.

Gadkari, however, has reiterated in his letter that MPs would not be allowed to choose their own village or that of their spouse to be developed as ‘adarsh gram’. The Lok Sabha has 543 MPs and the Rajya Sabha 250, 12 of which are nominated. Under SAGY, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 11, each MP will take the responsibility of developing physical and institutional infrastructure in one village and convert it into a model village by 2016, while two more would be developed by 2019. This means that if each MP adopts three villages, as envisaged in the scheme, there will be 2,379 ‘adarsh grams’ over the next five years.

As per the guidelines of the scheme, a gram panchayat with a population of 3,000-5,000 in plain areas and 1,000-3,000 in hilly, tribal and difficult areas would act as a basic unit of development. There are 265,000 gram panchayats in India.

The scheme, based on Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of rural development, revolves around creating model villages for transforming swaraj (self rule) into suraj (good governance).

Its main objective is to ensure holistic development of the identified gram panchayat. This includes personal development, human development, social development economic development and environmental development, in line with Gandhi’s vision of a model village. This will be done using the programmes of the Centre and states, aided by constituency development funds (MPLADS) of the MPs.

The scheme will be implemented through a village development plan that would be prepared for every identified gram and its progress would be monitored by two national-level committees set up for the purpose.