After Parliamentarians, it’s the higher educational institutions (HEI) that the Centre has roped in for development of villages across India. HEIs, with IIT-Delhi being the nodal coordinator, will adopt five panchayats each and carry out detailed field studies to find solutions for the issues of basic amenities and livelihood opportunities of rural communities.
Billed as ‘Unnat Bharat Abhiyan’, the scheme will be jointly implemented by the Ministries of HRD, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj. As things stand, nearly 100 MPs both from the lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha are yet to identify villages for adoption under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana’. West Bengal tops the list of States from where the MPs have shown a lukewarm response to the PM’s scheme.
The Secretaries of HRD Ministry, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj last week signed an MoU under the ‘Unnat Bharat’ programme, which aims to connect knowledge institutions with rural development processes through adoption of village clusters. The programme will be implemented in 92 districts in Phase-I.
‘As per the Tripartite MoU, the HRD Ministry will ensure that all higher education institutions would be encouraged to adopt a cluster of five panchayats in consultation with the District Collectors to carry out detail field study. These institutions would participate in conceptualising and preparation of household-level and community-level development plans along with the Rural Development and Panchayati Raj personnel,’ said a HRD Ministry official.
After field study, engagement with the local community and assessment of requirements for quality living, the knowledge inputs of educational institutions could be incorporated into the Gram Panchayat Development Plans (GPDP), that can be considered for implementation by district authorities.
They would provide inputs and suggest innovative solutions to issues faced in the day-to-day lives of people, in the areas of livelihoods, energy security, environment security and basic living amenities.
The Ministry of Panchayati Raj would facilitate the involvement of knowledge institutions in the GPDP preparation process and ensure operational tie-up between the educational institutions and the local bodies. ‘This Ministry would instruct all States and local bodies and allocate financial resources where necessary in the interest of quality GPDP preparation in the selected cluster. The District Collectors would oversee the functioning of this arrangement at the field level and send quarterly reports to the Central Government,’ said an official.
IIT-Delhi being the national coordinator of UBA, will design, build and make available a suitable work flow driven, internet enabled IT platform that will be used by HEIs and district administration to design and conduct the surveys.
Modi’s flagship village development project-Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana - hasn't been able to evoke the desired response even among members of the ruling BJP. Many parliamentarians want to discontinue their association with the project after a ‘bitter experience’ in the first spell.
Under SAGY, MPs from all political parties need to adopt villages with an aim to transform them into model villages and take the responsibility of developing physical and institutional infrastructure in these areas. All 795 MPs, including 543 from lok Sabha and 252 from Rajya Sabha, are to develop 3 villages each by 2019.
The second phase of the SAGY, which was started last January, too has not found favour among the Parliamentarians. Merely 151 MPs from lok Sabha and 44 from Rajya Sabha have selected a village so far as per the data available on the website of the Rural Development Ministry.
The scheme was announced by Modi in his first Independence Day speech after coming to power in May 2014. The first deadline for adopting the villages was November 11, 2014 to ensure all-round development by 2016 while the deadline for adopting second village under the second phase ended on January last year.