Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana

Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) was launched on 11th October, 2014 with the aim to translate the comprehensive vision of Mahatma Gandhi about an ideal Indian village into a reality.

The ‘Adarsh Grams’ are to become schools of local development and governance, inspiring other Gram Panchayats.The goal of Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) is to translate the comprehensive and organic vision of Mahatma Gandhi into reality, keeping in  view the present context. 

Values

The values that Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) propagates are

• Adopting people's participation as an end in itself ensuring the involvement of all sections of society in all aspects related to the life of village, especially in decision making related to governance

• Adhering to Antyodaya enabling the "poorest and the weakest person" in the village to achieve well-being

• Affirming gender equality and ensuring respect for women

• Guaranteeing social justice

• Instilling dignity of labour and the spirit of community service and voluntarism

• Promoting a culture of cleanliness

• Living in consonance with nature ensuring a balance between development and ecology

• Preserving and promoting local cultural heritage

• Inculcating mutual cooperation, self-help and self-reliance

• Fostering peace and harmony in the village community

• Bringing about transparency, accountability and probity in public life

• Nurturing local self-governance

• Adhering to the values enshrined in the Fundamental Rights and Fundamental Duties of the Indian Constitution

Objectives

The main objectives of Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) are

• To trigger processes which lead to holistic development of the identified  Gram Panchayats

• To substantially improve the standard of living and quality of life of all  sections of the population through

  • improved basic amenities

  • higher productivity

  • enhanced human development

  • better livelihood opportunities

  • reduced disparities

  • access to rights and entitlements

  • wider social mobilization

  • enriched social capital

• To generate models of local level development and effective local governance which can motivate and inspire neighbouring Gram Panchayats to learn and adapt

• To nurture the identified Adarsh Grams as schools of local development to train other Gram Panchayats

Role of MP

Under Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana, each Member of Parliament adopts a Gram Panchayat and guides its holistic progress giving importance for social development at par with infrastructure.

 The following are the roles of Member of Parliament in SAGY

• Identify and select the Gram Panchayat to develop as Adarsh Gram

• Engage with the community in the village and motivate them to take up development activities on their own according to their capacity

• Propagate the values of the scheme

• Initiate start-up activities to build up the right environment

• Facilitate the planning process

• Mobilise additional resources to the extent possible, particularly from CSR and philanthropies

• Fill up critical gaps in the plan using MPLADs funds

• Monitor the progress periodically and take the lead in sorting out issues and problems

• Proactively facilitate transparency and accountability in the programme implementation and help sort out public grievances

At the national level, the nodal ministry for implementing this scheme will be the Ministry of Rural Development. For overseeing the implementation, there  will be two national level committees. One will be headed by the Minister for Rural Development with the participation of the Ministers in charge of Planning, Programme Implementation and other key ministries as may be decided and also 6-8 members of Parliament from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on a rotation basis.

The second committee will be headed by the Secretary of Rural Development  with representatives from the following ministries/departments not below the rank of Joint Secretary:

• Panchayati Raj

• 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

• Other relevant ministries

The committee may co-opt experts in the key thematic areas of this scheme. It would be assisted by a small, focused, high impact secretariat comprising of three resource persons on contract.

Village Identification

The MP would be free to identify a suitable Gram Panchayat for being developed Adarsh Gram, other than his/her own village or that of his/her spouse.

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. Nominated MPs may choose a Gram Panchayat from the rural area of any district in the country. In the case of urban constituencies, (where there are no Gram  Panchayats), the MP will identify a Gram Panchayat from a nearby rural constituency.

Gram Panchayat would be the basic unit. It should have a population of 3000- 5000 inplain areas and 1000-3000 in hilly, tribal and difficult areas. If these sizes  are not available, Gram Panchayats of other sizes could be identified as far as  possible approximating the laid down sizes of population.

Primarily, the goal is to develop three Gram Panchayats as Adarsh Grams by  March 2019, of which one would be achieved by 2016. Thereafter, five such Adarsh Grams (one per year) will be selected and developed by 2024.

For environment building and social mobilisation the MP himself/herself  should involve the Gram Panchayat. Some of the activities which could be considered are:

• Interaction (charcha) with the Gram Sabha, Mahila Sabha, Bal Sabha

• Interaction (charcha) with occupational groups and local organisations, including youth clubs

• Organisation of cultural and sports events

• Wall writings, Shivirs, Padayatras, Nukkad naataks etc

• Painting and Literary Competitions on how the village could be made a model one.

• Demonstration of videos of best practices in village development

Convert Village to Adarsh Gram village

The possible strategies to convert the identified village into an Adarsh Gram are 

• Entry point activities to energize and mobilize the community towards positive common action

• Participatory planning exercise for identifying peoples' needs and priorities in an integrated manner

• Converging resources from Central Sector and Centrally Sponsored Schemes and also other State schemes to the extent possible.

• Repairing and renovating existing infrastructure to the extent possible.

• Strengthening the Gram Panchayats and peoples' institutions within them

• Promoting transparency and accountability

Activities

Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) activities should focus on holistic development covering personal development, human development, social development and economic development of the citizens.

The activities that can be taken up under the personal development of the  villagers are

• Inculcating hygienic behaviour and practices

• Fostering healthy habits including daily exercise and games

• Reducing risk behaviour- alcoholism, smoking, substance abuse, etc.

Human Development Activity

The activities that can be taken up under the human development of the village are

• Universal access to basic health facilities consisting of health card, medical examination

• Total immunization

• Balancing the sex-ratio

• 100% institutional delivery

• Improving nutrition status for all, with special focus on children, adolescent girls, pregnant women, and lactating mothers

• Strong focus on the special needs of Persons With Disability (PWD), especially children and women

• Universal access to education facilities up to Class 10th and retention

• Conversion of schools into 'smart schools'. Smart schools will have IT enabled classrooms, e-libraries, web based teaching and will make all students e-literate required for providing quality education

• Adult literacy

• E-literacy

• Village libraries including e-libraries

Social Development Activity

The activities that can be taken up under the social development of the village  are

• Activities for promotion of voluntarism like Bharat Nirman Volunteers

• Building the capacity of the people to fully participate and contribute to local development

• Activities for honouring village elders, local role models especially women, freedom fighters and martyrs

• Activities for violence and crime free villages such as:

• Setting up Citizen Committees

• Sensitization, especially of youth

• Village sports and folk arts festivals

• Having a village song to instil a sense of pride among the people

• Celebrating 'Village Day'

• Proactive steps for inclusion and integration of socially excluded groups, especially Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

Economic Development Activity

All the economic activities should focus particularly on lifting households out of poverty, for which organising and federating women SHGs, providing employment to all workers, and bringing about financial inclusion are very  important. Few activities that can be taken up under the economic development of the village are:

• Promoting diversified agricultural and allied livelihoods, including livestock and horticulture, through:

  • Organic farming

  • Soil health cards

  • Crop intensification such as SRI

  • Setting up of seed banks

  • Collection and value addition to Non Timber Forest Produce,Livestock development including Gobar Bank, cattle hostel

  • Livestock development including Gobar Bank, cattle hostel

  • Micro-irrigation

  • Agro-service centres

• Rural industrialization like:

  • Post-harvest technology applications

  • Micro-enterprises

  • Dairy development and processing

  • Food processing

  • Traditional Industries

• Skill Development of all eligible youth for self-employment and placement

• Village Tourism including eco-tourism

Environmental Development Activity

The activities that can be taken up under environmental development of the village are

• Activities for a clean and green village consisting of:

  • Providing toilets in each household and in all public institutions and ensuring their proper use

• Appropriate solid and liquid waste management

• Roadside plantations

• Tree plantation in accordance with local preferences in homesteads, schools and public institutions including green walkways

• Social forestry

• Watershed management especially renovation and revival of traditional water bodies

• Rainwater harvesting- rooftop as well as others

• Reducing local pollution of air, water and land

Basic amenities and services

The activities that can be taken up under providing basic amenities and  services in the village are

• Pucca houses for all houseless poor/poor living in kutcha houses

• Drinking water, preferably treated piped water with household taps

• Internal all weather roads with covered drains

• All weather road connectivity to the main road-network

• Electricity connection to all households and street-lights including from alternative sources of energy, especially solar

• Pucca infrastructure for public institutions- Anganwadis, schools, health institutions, Gram Panchayat Office and libraries

• Civic infrastructure including community halls, buildings for SHG federations, playgrounds and burial grounds/crematoria

• Village markets

• Infrastructure for PDS outlets

• Micro mini banks/post offices/ATMs

• Broadband connectivity and Common Service Centres

• Telecom connectivity

• CCTVs in public places

Social security

The activities that can be taken up under providing social security measures in the village are

• Pensions for all eligible families- old age, disability and widow

• Insurance schemes like Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana

• Health insurance- RSBY

• PDS- universal access to all eligible households

Good governance

The activities that can be taken up to ensure good governance in the village are

• Strengthening of local democracy through strong and accountable Gram Panchayats and active Gram Sabhas

• E-Governance resulting in better service delivery

• Provision of UIDAI cards to all

• Ensuring regular and punctual attendance of government and panchayat staff

• Time bound service delivery in line with Department's Citizens Charter

• Holding of Mahila Gram Sabhas before every Gram Sabha

• Holding of a Gram Sabha at least 4 times a year

• Holding of Bal Sabhas every quarter

• Proactive disclosure of all information pertaining to the implementation of the programme in the public domain and through wall-writing, notice boards in the local language. This should necessarily include the list of beneficiaries, item-wise budgets and expenditure.

• Gram Panchayat acting as an information facilitation centre

• Timely redressal of grievances filed by people, such that:

  • Grievances of all nature to be submitted to the Gram Panchayat /

  • Grievances to be redressed within three weeks along with written reply

  • Institutionalization of regular open platforms for airing of grievances and their redressal, coordinated by the Gram Panchayat

• Half yearly Social Audit of the programme implementation by the Gram Sabha facilitated by the Social Audit Units set up under MGNREGA.

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