The prime minister’s desire to develop smart cities and model villages has evoked lukewarm response from parliamentarians, including his own party colleagues. Reports say MPs, especially those in the Rajya Sabha, have not yet identified the rural settlements under the Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAGY). The chosen settlements are to become the focus of targeted development activities by Central and state governments. The first round of the scheme, launched in the initial months of Narendra Modi’s prime ministerial term, saw ministers and high-profile MPs vying to identify villages and take selfies with villagers.
But enthusiasm has waned over the next two rounds of the scheme, as MPs found that the state governments and the Union rural development ministry were not following up on the recommendations. Parliamentarians also received flak from their voters in other villages, on why a particular village was selected and why the MP discriminated. Unlike the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS), where nearly 545 Lok Sabha members get 05 crore each every year for the development of their constituencies and 245 Rajya Sabha members get a similar amount to be spent in states from where they have been elected, the MPs have no control over sanctioning and spending of funds for the PMAGY. Hence, personal involvement is not as intensive as it is for the MPLADS. If a district collector does not spend money under MPLADS, he can be subjected to a contempt of Parliament petition. But there is no such coercive proviso for implementation of the PMAGY.
Illustration: Bhaskaran
The rural development ministry—run by Narendra Singh Tomar, a BJP heavyweight who is a lightweight as a minister—is now working on ways to make the PMAGY more attractive, with money lines and timelines for achieving the objectives of total literacy, health care, digital connectivity, electrification and road linkage. But MPs argue that the power and information technology ministries have already embarked on programmes to ensure no village will be without electricity or digital link. They have told Tomar that the scheme needs to be revamped, so that special needs of the villages are taken care of. The needs include agriculture marketing, skill development, cold storage facilities and essential urban facilities. The ministry is also unhappy that the cooperation from state governments is not uniform, especially as local ministers and bureaucrats have different priorities compared with local Mps.
Now, the Prime Minister’s Office and the NITI Aayog, too, are expected to get into the act to ensure that the targets of the scheme are achieved. Perhaps Modi might have to call a meeting of the National Development Council in the spirit of cooperative federalism to discuss how to optimise village development, which is the responsibility of states, zilla parishads and gram panchayats.
sachi@theweek.in
