Dear Readers,
The Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana
has recently been in the news and could be important for your exams.
A project of the Ministry of
Rural Development, Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) is aimed at identifying
villages as models for development and carrying out the implementation of the
scheme agendas. This will be done mainly with the help of the roles assigned to
the Members of Parliament and committees at different levels. This article will
look at its objectives, background, approach, process of identification and
implementation framework.
Objectives
·
To stimulate processes that result in holistic
development of the identified Gram Panchayats.
·
To bring about significant improvement in the
standard of living and quality of life of all social groups by better basic
amenities, increased productivity, better livelihood opportunities, enhanced
human development, lesser disparities, equal access to rights and entitlements,
stimulated social capital and wider social mobilization.
·
To create models of local level development and effective
local governance that can encourage and inspire neighbouring Gram Panchayats to
emulate and adapt.
·
To nurture the identified Adarsh Grams as
schools of local development so as to replicate the features in other Gram
Panchayats.
Background
·
It was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi
on 11 October 2014, the birth anniversary of Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan.
·
It was initiated to bring together the MPs of
all political parties under one common umbrella, while taking responsibility of
undertaking physical and institutional development in villages and transform
them into model or ‘Adarsh’ villages.
·
Under this programme, every MP is required to
select one village each from the constituency which they represent, set
criteria and develop it into a model village by 2016.
·
Thereafter, they can pick two or three more
villages and do the same for them by 2019 when the next general elections take
place. They can set for themselves rural improvement projects of ten years
after this.
·
The villages picked in this scheme will be
offered smart schools, universal access to elementary health facilities and
pucca housing to homeless villagers.
Approach
To achieve the objectives of the
scheme, the SAGY would be executed on the basis of a certain approach. This
approach would include these salient features:
·
Using the leadership, capacity, commitment and
energy of the MPs to develop model Gram Panchayats.
·
Mobilizing and engaging with the community so as
to encourage participatory local level development.
·
Coordinating various government initiatives and private
and voluntary programmes to achieve wide development in sync with people’s goals
and local potential.
·
Establishing collaborations with voluntary organizations,
co-operatives and academic and research institutions.
Identification of an Adarsh Gram
·
This would start with the Gram Panchayat, which
would be the fundamental block. It has to have a population of 3000-5000 in
plains and 1000-3000 in hilly, tribal and difficult areas.
·
In districts where this unit size is
unavailable, the Gram Panchayat approximating the desirable population might be
chosen.
·
The MP would be free to identify an apt Gram
Panchayat for being developed as Adarsh Gram, but it cannot be her/his own
village or that of her/his spouse.
·
The MP would identify one Gram Panchayat to be
taken up immediately and two more to be taken up after some time.
·
A Lok Sabha MP has to pick a Gram Panchayat from
within her/his constituency and a Rajya Sabha MP has to select one from the
rural area of a district of her/his choice in the state from which s/he is
elected.
·
In the case of urban constituencies (where Gram
Panchayats are not applicable), the MP will identify a Gram Panchayat from an
adjacent rural constituency.
·
The primary goal is to develop three Adarsh
Grams by March 2019, out of which one would be developed by 2016. After that,
five such Adarsh Grams (one every year) will be chosen and developed by 2024.
Implementation Framework
The implementation of SAGY will
be undertaken on three levels – national, state, district and village.
National Level
1. Members
of Parliament – Each MP would identify and select the Adarsh Gram, and
would be responsible for
·
Interacting with the community in the village
and encourage them to take up development activities according to their own
capacities.
·
Propagating the values of the programme and
facilitating the planning process.
·
Initiating start-up activities to create the
ideal environment.
·
Gathering additional resources to aid the
project, especially from philanthropies and Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR).
·
Tracking the progress regularly and taking the
charge in resolving issues and obstacles.
·
Facilitating transparency and reliability in the
implementation procedure and help sort out public grievances
·
Coordinating with the village community to achieve
the desired, non-tangible results, specifically the social goals.
2. First
National Committee – This committee will be formed by Ministry of Rural
Development chaired by the Minister of Rural Development and its members would
be the Ministers in charge of planning, programme implementation other
significant ministries.
3. Second
National Committee – This will be headed by the Secretary of Rural
Development with representatives not below the rank of Joint Secretary from the
Ministries of Planning, Land Resources, Women and Child Development, Health and
Family Welfare, School Education, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Drinking
Water Supply and Sanitation, Power, New and Renewable Energy, Telecom,
Information Technology, Water Resources, Social Justice and Empowerment, Tribal
Affairs, Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Agriculture, Sports and Youth
Affairs, and Panchayati Raj.
Responsibilities of the Committees
·
Keeping track of the process of identification
and planning.
·
Reviewing the implementation of the programme.
·
Figuring out the mechanism for concurrent monitoring
and post-project evaluation for which an online system will also be set up.
·
Identifying problems and taking remedial actions
as needed.
·
Indicating specific resource support which will
be provided by each ministry to build capacity across states.
·
Promoting cross-learning among states.
·
Circulating the best tactics in village level
development through media like videos and print.
·
Issuing operational guidelines and advisories at
regular intervals which may be specific to a certain aspect or the scheme in
general.
State Level
Owing to the scale of this scheme
and the variation of implementation structures, there will be an Empowered
Committee headed by the Chief Secretary and consisting of the relevant
Departments and at least two civil society representatives. The Secretary of
Rural Development Department will serve as the member-convener. The functions
of this committee would be:
·
To provide supplementary state-specific SAGY
guidelines which are more specific to the state and takes into account the
various state initiatives. These should specify the roles and responsibilities of
the functionaries at the Gram Panchayat (GP) , block, district and state
levels.
·
To assess Village Development Plans from across
constituencies and ensure that important outputs are achieved within the expected
timelines.
·
To identify administrative and technical support
required and issue necessary instructions and orders as and when needed.
·
To coordinate with the national committees as
required.
·
To design a timetable for exposure visits to the
model villages and develop a state level plan for circulation of best
practices.
·
To design a grievance redressal system for the
scheme which will be put in place at the level of the Charge Officer and the
district as per the scheme guidelines.
District Level
·
The District Collector will be responsible for
implementing SAGY at the district level. S/he will conduct a monthly review
meeting with representatives of the participating line departments.
·
The concerned MPs will head these meetings and
the GP heads will also be invited.
·
The Collector will then appoint a competent
Charge Officer of substantial seniority for every GP who will coordinate the
implementation at the local level.
·
The Collector will also have to actively involve
Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellows and identified professionals of the District
Mission Management Units in the programme, wherever needed.
·
Other responsibilities would be conducting the
baseline survey, providing village level preparation, converging the important
strategies, coordinating scheme implementation across departments, analyzing
progress every month and reporting it back to the state and Government of
India, adhering to grievance redressal and arranging visits to evaluate progress.
Village Level
·
The GP and functionaries of the scheme at
different levels would be the heads.
·
The role of this level functionaries would be to
track the implementation of the scheme, identify common needs of the village, leverage
resources from different programmes and ensure participation in the scheme.
These are the primary points in
the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana. If you can understand these well, you can
easily attempt questions pertaining to this.
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