After field visits, Centre to rank 700 villages adopted by MPs

NEW DELHI: Two years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the ambitious Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY), the members of Parliament will get a report on how they have fared. The rural development ministry is working on a ranking of 700 villages adopted by MPs in the first phase of the programme. The report card will include details such as the projects initiated in the village, the project

progress and how effective the intervention has been. The ministry is depending on two elements - the Village Development Plan and 35-point impact indicator called Panchayat Darpan - for the ranking. The Village Development Plan gives an overall picture of the MP's plan to transform the village into a model village. Panchayat Darpan is more of a qualitative tool worked out to gauge how the village has fared on issues including universal immunisation, malnourishment, electrified households, institutional deliveries, open defecation and provision of piped water supply. The two elements will be juxtaposed to work out the rankings.

After this, officials will initiate field visits to corroborate the rankings in the top 20 villages.

"Though 700 villages have been adopted by the MPs, the work varies across the villages with some faring better than others," a senior official told et. "In many cases, there could be great work initiated on ground but just because the project in-charge has not entered data correctly, the village may not fare well in the rankings. This is why we will initiate field visits in the adopted villages to give MPs a fair picture," he said, requesting not to be identified.

Modi had unveiled the programme on October 11, 2014, exhorting MPs to adopt a village and convert it into a model one. The programme envisages development of a model village by each MP by 2016 and another two by 2019.

The ministry is in the process of getting data from all the states. "So far we have received 70% of the data. But we cannot give a fair picture with just 70% of the villages. We are in the process of getting data and once we have up to 90% we will go ahead with ranking of the villages," another official said.

The report card will also list out success stories, interesting projects taken up by MPs and technological solutions undertaken.