*None of Legislators showed interest in PM’s ambitious scheme
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Feb 8: In what could be termed as non-serious approach towards the ambitious scheme of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, majority of the Members of Parliament (MPs) from Jammu and Kashmir have yet not identified the Gram Panchayats to be taken up for development under Phase-II of Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY). Moreover, two of them have failed to obtain benefit of even Ist Phase, which was started early last year.
The scheme, which is the brainchild of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was launched on October 11, 2014 on the birth anniversary of Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan. The scheme is unique and transformative as it has a holistic approach towards development and envisages integrated development of the selected villages across multi areas.
The basic objective of the scheme is to keep the soul of rural India alive while providing its people with quality access to basic amenities and opportunities to enable them to shape their own destiny. Under this scheme, the Members of Parliament are required to identify Gram Panchayats under different Phases for holistic development.
Lok Sabha MP has to choose a Gram Panchayat from within his/her constituency and Rajya Sabha MP a Gram Panchayat from the rural area of a district of his/her choice in the State from which he/she is elected. The Phase-I of the scheme was started with the launch of the scheme in October 2014 and after start of activities in the identified Gram Panchayats the Phase-II was set into motion by the Union Ministry of Rural Development.
According to the official data of the Ministry, out of six Lok Sabha Members from J&K, only two have identified the Gram Panchayats under Phase-II while as four have yet not completed this exercise despite lapse of considerable period of time.
The Members of Parlia-ment (Lok Sabha), who have not selected the Gram Panchayats under Phase-II are Muzaffar Hussain Baig (Baramulla Parliamentary Constituency), Thupstan Chhewang (Ladakh Parliam-entary Constituency), Mehb-ooba Mufti (Anantnag Parli-amentary Constituency and Jugal Kishore Sharma (Jammu Parliamentary Cons-tituency).
As far as Rajya Sabha members from J&K are concerned, none of them has carried out this exercise. They are Ghulam Nabi Azad (Congress), Mir Mohammad Fayaz and Nazir Ahmed Laway (both People’s Democratic Party) and Shamsher Singh Manhas (Bharatiya Janata Party).
Moreover, Nazir Ahmed Laway (PDP) and Shamsher Singh Manhas (BJP) have yet not identified the Gram Panchayats for Phase-I despite the fact that even Phase-II has been launched by the Union Ministry with the involvement of authorities of the Rural Development Department of Jammu and Kashmir.
“This clearly establishes that the seriousness, which was required to be shown towards this ambitious scheme, is missing at the level of majority of the Members of Parliament even more than one year after the launch of Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana”, sources regretted.
“The non-seriousness at the level of Legislators is much more than the Members of Parliament as none of them has so far come forward to identify the Gram Panchayats for development under SAGY scheme”, sources further regretted.
They informed that on October 29, 2014, the Prime Minister had written to all the States of the country including Jammu and Kashmir regarding implementation of the scheme. In the letter, Prime Minister had laid emphasis on the need to create as many ‘Adarsh Grams’ as possible in the States. He had even requested the States to make earnest appeal to the Members of Legislative Assembly and Members of Legislative Council to identify suitable Gram Panchayats in accordance with the guidelines of the scheme and give necessary leadership for transforming them into ‘Adarsh Grams’.
However, there was no adherence to the communication of the Prime Minister from any of the MLA or MLC and this prompted the PMO to again write to the Chief Secretary of J&K on February 4, 2015 seeking update with respect to the participation of MLAs/MLCs in the scheme. Again on February 17, 2015, the Union Rural Development Ministry wrote to the Administrative Secretary of Rural Development Department of J&K bringing his attention towards the communiqué from the PMO.
“But till date, none of the Legislators of J&K has taken this scheme seriously, which is evident from the fact that no recommendation has been made to the Rural Development Department of the State, which is the nodal agency for the implementation of the scheme”, sources informed, adding “if all the Legislators of J&K start participating in the scheme more than 100 villages can be developed as Adarsh Grams”.
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