On October 14, 2014 the birth anniversary of Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan, Prime Minister Modi launched an ambitious scheme called Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY). The scheme was simple to define. The Prime Minister made an appeal to all the law makers in the Parliament and in State Legislative Assemblies to choose a village Panchayat for the MPs from their constituencies and for the Rajya Sabha members from the rural area of respective State for development. Development embraced schemes for infrastructural development like roads, bridges, waters supply, electricity, schools, craft centers for women, society halls, reading rooms, amenities, playground, centers for performance of cultural events, health centers etc. The basic objective of the scheme is to keep the soul of rural India alive while providing its people with quality access to basic amenities and opportunities to enable them to shape their own destiny
It is sad to say that though Phase I in of the scheme has ended, but most of the MPs from the State in both Houses of the Parliament have not so far identified the Panchayats which they would take up under SAGY. According to reports with us, out of six Lok Sabha Members from J&K, only two have identified the Gram Panchayats under Phase-II while as four have not completed this exercise despite lapse of considerable period of time. As far as Rajya Sabha members from J&K are concerned, none of them has carried out this exercise till date. Phase I of the scheme is already over and Phase II is also treated casually by our law makers. Whose loss is it; let us ask our law makers, it is the loss of the people of the State. We have six members in the Lok Sabha and four members in Rajya Sabha, making in all ten members in Parliament. And if we add the strength of the MLAs MLCs to it, the number goes above one hundred. Imagine if one hundred Panchayats were adopted by these members for holistic development, would not that change the shape of our State. But alas, our law makers are not perhaps conscious of how much loss they are inflicting on the people of the state. We would like to make an appeal to our law makers whether in the Parliament or in the Legislative Assembly to understand that they have great responsibility of harnessing all of their efforts towards the development of the State. Missing a single opportunity is inflicting a wound on the body of polity. That should not be done.
Follow our WhatsApp channel