Sometimes one wonders whether our law makers are really serious about the purpose for which people vote them to the Parliament or the Legislative Assemblies. Are they really accountable to the people or is the accountability item just the eyewash? In democracy, everything does not go through orders and missives and instructions. Much has to be done through voluntary initiative and at the behest of the inner voice. Service to people ultimately has to become the voice of the soul. But unfortunately we do not find it happening with our legislators.
India lives in villages and village is the true India. Therefore if our villages progress in all respects, we can claim that India has progressed. This was the dream of Gandhiji. How far has this dream been realized is a moot point. We do not say that our Governments are negligent about the development of villages. That is not the factual position. But the way our villages should have developed, especially through the initiatives of the law makers coming from rural India, has not happened. The onus goes to the doorsteps of the elected law makers among others. Entire responsibility cannot be thrust on the executive. We can support this argument by the example of Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojna, a scheme of rural development which had been floated by the Prime Minister on October 11, 2014 in commemoration of birth anniversary of Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan. The plan was that the Members of the Parliament adopt a village in their respective constituencies for development as a model village. It was meant to keep the soul of rural India alive and provide the model village with the amenities and facilities normally required by a modern society. In order to give this scheme full space and make it effective in real sense of the term, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote to all States including J&K in October 2014 stressing on the implementation of the scheme adding that as many as possible Adarsh Grams should be developed with basic amenities. He proposed that MLAs and MLCs each in all States also undertake to raise a model village in their constituencies.
The scheme was well calculated and considered before it was announced. The plan was fully explained and disseminated. But unfortunately in our State it evoked no response. Not a single MLA or MLC has taken the initiative so far of raising a model village.
The question is whether the responsibility of the legislators ends with only making a speech in the Assembly or criticising the Government on one or the other matter? Is that all they have to do? This is only myopic vision of the duties and responsibilities which the constitution and the moral code impose on elected representatives of the people. If each legislator takes the responsibility of developing one village in his or her constituency, it would immensely help in the development of our villages across the country. Preserving the soul of India is possible only if the rural India is able to maintain its identity but at the same time have the modern facilities and conveniences and thus a mixed life pervades. We have held elections to Panchayats and the identification of a village proposed to be converted into a model village could have been worked out through the Gram Panchayat option. We know that the law makers will make an excuse of floods and Assembly election as delaying their interest in implementing the scheme. These are mere pretexts and such flimsy excuses have no takers. Nobody will be convinced that owing to these excuses no movement was possible in the functionality of the system. Elections do not stop developmental works. Moreover only one village would be involved not all the villages in the constituency. The hard fact is that our legislators are not really that serious about the development and progress as they should be.
Assuming that till the end of the polls nothing could be done in connection with the scheme, why should not there be movement in the direction after the election was over. At least identification of villages should have been done on the basis of the guideline provided by the PMO. Even that task remains unfulfilled. The outcome is that the entire scheme has ended in fiasco. How sad and disappointing this is. Not to speak of others, MLAs/MLCs of BJP, the ruling party in the centre, have not taken any initiative in the matter. Senior functionaries of the Rural Development Department contend that they cannot identify the villages on their own and that only MLAs concerned would do that, and the MLAs are least bothered.
In any case, now that the new Government is in the seat of power, we expect the Chief Minister to lose no time in bringing home to the MLAs to complete the identification of villages and begin implementation of the scheme. The work should be undertaken expeditiously to make good the loss of time that has been met with.
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