New Delhi : More than one-third of the members of Parliament (MPs) are yet to adopt the villages for their all-round development as “ideal” places to live by 2016 under the “Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojna” (SAGY) launched with much fanfare by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 11.
The government had set the deadline of November 11 but only 512 out of a total of 795 Parliamentarians had identified the villages they want to adopt by November 24.
A reply in the Lok Sabha by the rural development ministry says 393 MPs of the Lok Sabha and 117 of the Rajya Sabha have adopted their villages for taking personal interest in their all-round development through the central an state schemes and also provide money from their MPs constituency development fund under the MPLADS.
While Modi adopted on November 7 Jayapur village in his Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency, the Congress leaders who have adopted the villages include Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, A K Antony, Ambika Soni and Oscar Fernandes.
The ministers who have adopted the villages include Ravi Shankar Prasad, Najma Heptullah, Rajiv Pratap Rudy and Rajya Vardhan Singh Rathore.
A Lok Sabha MP can select any village with a population of 3000-5000 in plains and 1000-3000 in hilly area in their
constituencies, while Rajya Sabha MP can choose any village from the state they represent, keeping in mind the population criteria.
The idea is that each MP should turn one village into a model village by 2016 and proceed to adopt two more villages by 2019.
The idea is to turn over 2400 villages into ideal
villages by the time of the next lok Sabha elections.
