Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Adarsh Gram Yojna is reportedly yet another example of a false promise. According to a report in Navjivan India, the supposed “adarsh” — ideal — villages are not ideal by any standard. Promises and pledges taken by MPs in the name of this scheme, per the report, have sadly remained unfulfilled. Not just that, in many of these villages that were selected for this scheme, basic welfare schemes and plans are yet to be implemented.
The Navjivan report details the conditions of different villages that were “adopted” by various MPs. For example, Jungle Aurahi, the village adopted by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, merely eight kilometres away from the Gorakhpur District headquarters, has seen wear and tear in the past year. Millions were spent in building roads in this village. Yet, barely a year later, have the roads begun to disintegrate. That isn’t all; the village faces a severe water shortage — the residents receive water once every five days.
When Adityanath was the Gorakhpur MP, the report suggests that he would often visit the village and keep track of development. However, ever since he assumed the office of chief minister in 2017, things have not been the same.
In Chhattisgarh, former Lok Sabha MP of Rajnandgaon, Abhishek Singh, too had adopted a village that now faces severe infrastructural issues. Drainage issues, dirt roads that have sewer water flowing into them, and lack of water, these are all things reportedly visible in Gotatola, merely eight kilometres away from the Rajnandgaon District Camp headquarters. The son of former Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh, per the report, has visited the village only twice in the four years he has adopted it.
The scheme is a rural development programme broadly focusing upon the development in the villages which includes social growth, cultural development and spread motivation among the people on social mobilisation of village communities.