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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Minus money, PM 'model' loses sheen -Anita Joshua

Minus money, PM 'model' loses sheen -Anita Joshua

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published Published on Jul 10, 2017   modified Modified on Jul 10, 2017
-The Telegraph

New Delhi: Parliamentarians, even those from the BJP, have been dragging their feet for the second year in a row over adopting villages in their constituencies (or states) under the Pradhan Mantri Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana.

Over a quarter into this fiscal, only 40 of the 788 MPs have identified gram panchayats for adoption under the programme, which mandates them to develop these villages into "model villages" for others to emulate.

The reason the lawmakers cite is the absence of a specific fund allocation, which kept MPs' participation well below 50 per cent during the last financial year - the second "phase" of the scheme.

In the first phase, which stretched from the scheme's announcement in October 2014 till the end of the 2015-16 fiscal, some 88 per cent of the MPs had joined in. The current phase, the third, is expected to be the last before the 2019 election.

Only eight among the ministers - Sushma Swaraj, Ashok Gajapati Raju, M.J. Akbar, Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Babul Supriyo and Vijay Goel, apart from Prime Minister Narendra Modi - have identified villages for adoption till date this fiscal.

Modi is said to have identified one recently - his third after Jayapur and Nagepur -and the paperwork is still in progress as the name of Kakrahia is yet to make it to the central list maintained by the rural development ministry.

That Kakrahia - known for its wrestlers - has been picked for adoption was announced by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath last Sunday. Reports from Varanasi suggest that efforts are under way to locate a venue for a stadium.

Interest in the scheme had flagged further with the finance ministry rejecting the rural development ministry's efforts last year to get some allocation for it.

While the government wants the MPs to dip into their local area development funds for the purpose, the members are reluctant, highlighting the political costs of giving preferential treatment to one village.

To skirt this problem, the rural development ministry, which oversees the programme, said that all its centrally sponsored schemes would be made available on priority for the selected villages.

"Many of the existing schemes have been prioritised for implementation in model villages if an MP so desires," an official said.

But the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor, argued that separate funding was a must for the programme to succeed.

"While I am doing what I can out of existing funds and schemes to help the adopted villages, I have no illusion that the very resources that had failed to make the villages ' adarsh' in the past will suddenly transform them because we have put a new label on them," he told The Telegraph.

Tharoor had adopted villages in both the earlier phases but is yet to do so this fiscal.

"Still, since the act of 'adoption' focuses some attention on the villages, I'm likely to adopt a village under Phase III as well, while still arguing for the central government to contribute additional resources under the scheme," he said.

Off the record, members of ministerial staff aired the same scepticism. Asked why his minister had not adopted a village in the third phase, a staff member dismissed it as a programme meant for mere posturing.

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The Telegraph, 9 July, 2017, https://www.telegraphindia.com/1170710/jsp/nation/story_161121.jsp#.WWLgqt42YT0.twitter


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