Sangsad Adarsh Gram Yojana
Sangsad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY), as on 25 July 2018, 478 and 218 MPs identified Gram Panchayats under Phase-II and Phase-III respectively. 32 and 22 Union Ministers have identified Gram Panchayats under Phase II. and Phase-III respectively on 25 July 2018 under Sangsad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY). Details are available on the SAGY website (saanjhi.gov.in) and can be accessed using MPs' respective logins. This information was given by the Minister of State for Rural Development Shri Ram Kripal Yadav in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today.
Union Rural Development Minister requested all MPs to identify Gram Panchayats under SAGY. A reminder has also been issued in this regard. The newly elected MPs were also requested to identify Gram Panchayats under SAGY. Further, the Rural Development Minister has written to all Chief Ministers requesting them to draw their attention to ensure effective implementation of SAGY.
Following initiatives have been taken for better implementation of the project:
Guidelines for 22 central schemes have been amended or enabled to prioritize SAGY Gram Panchayats. A compilation of 223 Central Sector/Centrally Sponsored and 1,806 State Projects under SAGY has been prepared for the benefit of Members of Parliament, District and Village level officials. The Ministry has launched 'Sahayoga' as an instructional guidance document with essential information on existing social security schemes collected from concerned Ministries to enrich the knowledge of villagers and village level officials to achieve 100% enrollment in social/financial security. SAGY Scheme in Gram Panchayats.
A 35 point outcome index covering infrastructure, education, health, sanitation, livelihood, women empowerment, financial inclusion, food security, social security and e-governance has been developed to assess the impact of SAGY on village panchayats.
Coordinating with other Union Ministries/Departments to ensure provision of four core basic services. Electricity, drinking water, roads and education in all SAGY Gram Panchayats.
Recognizing that implementation of SAGY requires highly motivated and knowledgeable staff, the Ministry conducted a capacity building exercise for 373 SAGY staff in Phase-II/III Gram Panchayats. during April-June 2018. The Ministry has circulated consultative templates to State Governments for preparing proposals for seeking assistance from the Private, Voluntary and Cooperative (PVC) sector. Proposals received from States / Union Territories are displayed on the SAGY website for wide publicity Further, the Ministry met representatives of industry and professional associations associated with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and oriented them on the opportunities presented by SAGY, Mission Antyodaya and other schemes to integrate private/corporate investment with government initiatives for development of villages.
TARGET:
Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) aims to translate this comprehensive and organic vision of Mahatma Gandhi into reality keeping in mind the present context.
The main objectives of SAGY are:
Triggering processes that lead to holistic development of identified Gram Panchayats
thereby significantly improving the standard of living and quality of life of all sections of the population
* better infrastructure
* high productivity
* better human development
* better livelihood opportunities
* less discrimination
* access to rights and rights
* greater social cohesion
* rich social capital
Result:
Most of the findings relating to investments and schemes are detailed in Annex II. In addition, other important results of SAGY are expected to include:
* Increase in livelihood/employment opportunities
* crisis migration reduction
* Freedom from bonded labour, child labor and physical hygiene
* 100% registration of death and birth
* Development of alternative dispute resolution systems that are acceptable to all sections of the community
* peace and harmony
* Effect of protest on other gram panchayats
What happened to Sangsad Adarsh Gram Yojana?
In October 2014, in Narendra Modi style, with epic fanfare, a scheme called 'Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana' (SAGY) was launched. The idea was that each Member of Parliament would be asked to adopt a village in his constituency and develop it as a model village. This will then become a blueprint for the development of other villages.
What the 'About' section of the SAGY website says: "The target is to develop three model villages by March 2019, one of which will be achieved by 2016. Thereafter, five such model villages (one per year) will be selected and completed by 2024. will be completed in
It's April 2019, so the question to be asked now is: Whatever happened to Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana?
Forgotten plans with forgotten websites
Visit official website of the scheme: http://saanjhi.gov.in The first logical thing we need to do is to find out what is going on - even if it is happening. As it turns out, what I've done doesn't work. Only the Home, About, and CSR pages are open, drawing a blank on others—such as guidelines, circulars, messages, reports, and media—that are important to getting an idea of exactly how the plan is working.
Well, it's time to put some great juggling skills to work. So I tried entering the website URL manually with http://saanjhi.gov.in/media.aspx and boom at the end. success and despair.
This report was last updated from November 2014. It is about the Prime Minister's journey and his plan to adopt his constituency Jaipur village in Varanasi under this project. Interesting stuff. Officials didn't even bother to update the website that PM Modi has adopted two more villages besides Jaipur.
So, the next step here is to dig deeper and find out what happened to these villages adopted by the PM.
The Prime Minister adopted villages and their status
In March 2017, Mint ran a story describing how the village of Jayapur had seen a flurry of adoption activities. They got new roads, solar power systems, toilets and piped water. But it was short-lived due to lack of administrative staff. Bathrooms built under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan have started crumbling, people have started selling solar panels and unemployment remains a problem in villages. Even the water supply from the pipeline has failed.
After Jayapur, PM Modi adopted two more villages in 2016. One of them was Nagpur. In October 2018, journalists from The Quint presented a report on the condition of this village.
A solar plant was supposed to be set up in Nagepur, but after 10 months of negotiations, the private company that was supposed to set up the plant refused to pay for the land and walked away. There are no schools for children above class five and no hospitals nearby, adding to the problems of the people there. Unemployment, once again, seems to be a major problem that people are complaining about.
Little is known about how the third village is faring. Well, let's not just criticize our Prime Minister's visionary plans. Let's see how other MPs are doing.
How are the other members of parliament?
One news that hit the board was Sachin Tendulkar's adoption of a village. They adopted Puttamaraju Kandriga in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh and here the story is quite different. It appears that they have done excellent work in the development of this village as per this report.
In 2017, she adopted Donja in Osmanabad, Maharashtra under SAGY. But unfortunately Sachin looks different here. In contrast, other MPs are not very receptive to SAGY and it has received a generally lukewarm response. 703 villages out of 786 MPs have been adopted in the first phase of the project. After that the adoption rate decreased. In Phase 2, 466 MPs identified villages, while in Phase 3, the number came down to just 172 MPs. Apparently, lawmakers have a definite tendency to lose interest in this much-hyped project.
It should be mentioned here that out of this the ruling BJP has a total of 341 MPs in Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha. Of course, the total number of seats occupied has changed due to retirements, resignations and deaths, but when you take that into account, participation in later stages of SAGY is still pretty disappointing. At least the BJP MPs should have tried to be diligent about this adoption.
So why is this plan failing? Why are members of parliament losing interest? The answer may lie in how the scheme was designed and how it works.
Funding, administrative and perception crisis
One would assume that if the government started a scheme, there would be some money attached to it. Let's say you are an MP who has adopted a village and you want to build a fish pond - like master blaster Tendulkar did - then you need money to do it. Where does the money for your project come from? Logically, this should be given to you as part of this plan. But no. MPs adopting villages under the SAGY scheme should finance projects in their adopted villages using their Members of Parliament Local Area Development (MPLAD) funds.
As per earlier reports, Sachin spent around Rs 3.6 crore from his MPLAD fund and the Andhra Pradesh government separately spent Rs 4.5 crore. An MP gets ₹5 crore annually as MPLAD fund and this is a village we are talking about. Some constituencies have more than 3,000 villages. As an MP, choosing only eight villages (by 2024) and spending a chunk of your annual development money on them is plain bad politics. This will cause great anger among the voters of other villages as they are well aware that the MPs can develop projects across constituencies from their own funds. MPLAD funds should be spread across constituencies to keep people happy and vote for you.
Reluctance to adopt may also stem from the fact that little administrative follow-up is done after villages are identified. The Prime Minister may have painstakingly selected three villages, planned them carefully according to the needs of their constituencies and tried to convert their adopted villages into model villages. But it depends on how well the state government of Uttar Pradesh is following through on implementing these many schemes. If the state government stops showing interest in these model villages, MPs will also lose interest in adopting and converting more villages.
SAGY may have been launched with much fanfare, but due to poor planning and just plain ill-thought-out policy framework, it is failing miserably. Now no matter how much money you throw at it, it won't work.
The website of this scheme proves my point.
This is the first part of a series looking at some of the top schemes and programs launched by the current Bharatiya Janata Party government and how they have performed.
Official Website: CLICK HERE
Source: newslaundry.com
