Scroll journalist booked, but Modi govt’s own survey says Adarsh Gram Yojana failed to achieve purpose

Days after the UP police booked a Scroll journalist for allegedly “defaming” a woman by writing a story on the lockdown’s adverse impact on the poor in a village adopted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY), Modi government’s own survey has concluded that SAGY failed to achieve “the desired purpose”.

The much-hyped scheme that was announced by the PM from the ramparts of the Red Fort in 2014 has not made any significant impact on the ground, says the survey conducted by a team comprising academicians, researchers and retired bureaucrats.

The survey was commissioned by the Union Ministry of Rural Development – currently headed by Narendra Singh Tomar – to assess the impact and progress of various programmes and schemes launched by the Ministry.

Conducted as part of the Fifth Common Review Mission (CRM), the survey said, “The CRM teams that visited the states did not find any significant impact of this scheme. In many of the SAGY villages, MPs did not give any significant money from MPLADS. In isolated cases, where MPs have been pro-active, some infrastructure development has taken place, but the scheme has not made any perceptible impact.”

“In many SAGY villages, the (local) MP did not give any significant money from Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS). In isolated cases, where MPs have been pro-active, some infrastructure development has taken place, but the scheme has not made any perceptible impact. As such, these villages cannot be called Model (‘Adarsh’) villages,” the survey said.

It is worth noting here that the Scroll journalist in her report published on June 8 had claimed, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi adopted the village in 2018 under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana, the model village scheme for members of Parliament. This was the fourth village Modi had adopted in the Varanasi constituency…the association with the Prime Minister nor with the Sangh helped many residents of Domari, who lack ration cards to access emergency food support”.

Not only did the survey red-flag the failure of the SAGY, but it also expressed concerns over the other developmental works launched in villages under various schemes.

CRM conducted the survey in 120 villages, including about a dozen SAGY villages, in 21 districts across eight states – Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh – and urged the Centre to frame a “National Rural Road Policy” to ensure uniform norms of construction and maintenance of roads in rural India.