With an aim to develop three Adarsh Grams by March 2019, the Centre has set November 11 deadline for the Members of Parliament (MPs) to choose one village which they will develop as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY).
Rural Development Minister Nitin Gadkari in his presentation before the MPs recently said, “at this juncture, we need to immediately identify the gram panchayat to be taken up for transformation into ‘Adarsh Gram’. The identification of one gram panchayat to be developed into a model gram panchayat by 2016 may be done at the earliest.
“The identification exercise is required to be completed by November 11, 2014 positively,” he said. The scheme was launched by the Prime Minister on October 11.
The idea is to develop three Adarsh Grams by March 2019, of which one would be achieved by 2016. Thereafter, 5 such Adarsh Grams (one per year) will be selected and developed by 2024. “The MP will not identify a Panchayat to which he/she or his/her spouse belongs,” the Minister said.
He added that a lok Sabha MP has to choose a gram panchayat from within his/her constituency while a Rajya Sabha MP may pick one in the rural area of a district of his/her choice in the State from which he/she is elected. Nominated MPs can choose a gram panchayat from the rural area of any district in the country.
For urban constituencies having no gram panchayats, the MP can choose a gram panchayat from a nearby rural constituency, he said.The gram panchayat thus identified should have a population of 3,000-5,000 in the plains and 1,000-3,000 in the hilly, tribal and difficult areas. In districts where such unit sizes are not available, gram panchayats approximating to the desired population level may be chosen.
Outlining his vision for the development of model villages, Modi had said, “If we have to build the nation, we have to start from the villages... If every MP transforms villages in his/her constituency into model villages, a large number of villages in the country would see holistic development”.