Govt reports accessed by ThePrint show that ministers like Bandaru Duttatreya, J.P. Nadda, Rajiv Pratap Rudy and Prakash Javadekar have performed poorly
The Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY), one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet projects under which each MP has to develop at least three model villages, seems to have lost steam thanks to tardy implementation of the scheme.
Official data accessed by ThePrint show that not only MPs, but also ministers of the Modi government have performed abysmally. According to SAGY ‘Performance Progress Reports’ 2016, eight ministers have achieved only 20% of targets in their adopted villages while 23 ministers could not exceed a 60% project completion rate.
Launched in 2014 by Modi with much fanfare, the SAGY is in its second leg now, but much still needs to be done to help the scheme find its feet.
Even Phase-I, despite the PM’s many exhortations, is marred by poor implementation with a number of MPs struggling to complete their projects to date, well beyond their 2015-16 deadline.
The confidential reports say that over 100 MPs could not complete more than 20 per cent of the projects. Of the 671 parliamentarians who adopted a village, there were 20 who could not even finish 5 per cent of the work in the gram panchayat.
While the rural development ministry — which tracks the progress of the scheme — did not respond to ThePrint’s queries, sources there said that some MPs may have improved on their progress rate in the past few months and the report is now being duly updated. Figure this out:
Big guns fail to make impact
Find more details on Who is who – Adarsh Gram
Labour minister Bandaru Duttatreya is the worst performer with just one per cent of projects completed in his adopted village in Andhra Pradesh. Health minister J.P. Nadda has scored 19 percent and the HRD minister stands at an unimpressive 10 percent, the reports say.
Rajen Gohain, MoS railways, has completed no more than 4 per cent of work in the village he chose in Assam while the skill development minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy has had an 8 per cent project completion rate in his Bihar village.
Similarly, M.J. Akbar, MoS external affairs, is at 15%; Rao Inderjit Singh; MoS planning and urban development, has done 14% of work while Arjun Ram Meghwal, MoS finance ministry, scored 17%.
The other notables include the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former defence minister A.K. Antony, chief minister of Punjab Capt. Amarinder Singh (19 percent) and Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal (3 percent).
When contacted by ThePrint, those in this bracket cited roadblocks and constraints that may have come in the way. Rudy said that the flood-prone nature of the village, Sitab Diyara, made it extremely difficult to complete work there.
“I could have chosen any other village and completed projects in no time but I had chosen this one as it is the birth place of Jai Prakash Narayan-ji. The village, unfortunately, is rendered inaccessible for 3-4 months together as it is very flood prone. Now, with a BJP-backed state government, I am certain things will move faster”, Rudy told ThePrint.
Dr Manmohan Singh’s office told ThePrint that the 12.8 percent completion rate was mainly because the state govt and district administration were not responsive enough. His office has asked the local Congress MPs and area MLA to coordinate the rest of the activities as the former PM’s health no longer permitted him to visit the village.
Prakash Javadekar’s office, on the other hand, claimed that there is a data mismatch and old figures used by the rural development ministry led to a wrong projection of 10 percent completion rate. His office said the HRD minister had completed 31 of the 41 projects — 75 percent — in Paldew (Madhya Pradesh). The rural development ministry sources said that the completion rate had increased this year.
MoS Arjun Meghwal claims to have completed a range of works. “I did a lot of work in Bikampur like building boundary walls for cremation and burial grounds, installing solar lights, ensuring BRO roads were laid down and providing 24-hour electricity supply. I can’t say what data has been uploaded,” Meghwal told ThePrint.
Nadda, Akbar, Gohain and Duttatreya did not respond to queries sent by ThePrint despite repeated reminders. Duttatreya’s aides, however, indicated that the state government had not been very cooperative.
MoS Inderjit Singh’s office said, “As on date, out of 33 works taken up under SAGY for Bolni village, 17 have been completed.”
No Congress MP on top-performer list
Find more details on Under 20 percenters
There are, however, also those who have notched up a 100% completion rate and most of these MPs keep a low profile. There are BSP’s Ambeth Rajan who has a 100 per cent record at Luhrali village; Suresh Angadi in Karnataka, a V Sathya Bama at Pariyur village, among others.
While 16 of the 22 MPs with a 100% performance record are from the BJP; there isn’t a single Congress MP in this list. Five Union ministers are among the 22 high performing MPs — culture minister Mahesh Sharma, minister for rural development and panchayati raj Narendra Tomar, MoS railways Manoj Sinha, statistics and programme implementation minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda and MoS chemicals & fertilizers Mansukhlal Mandaviya.
UP deputy CM Keshav Maurya has also shown a 100 percent project completed rate as has BJP’s Rekha Arun Verma- who stepped into politics after her husband’s death.
BJP veterans cross the halfway mark
Find more details on Adarsh Gram – Council of Ministers
Congress president Sonia Gandhi has recorded a 38 percent project completion rate while Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has finished 40 percent of works at Jagdishpur in UP, the reports say. Congress veteran Motilal Vora has achieved 90 percent even as Oscar Fernandes is at 3 percent.
L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, two senior-most BJP leaders, have achieved 50 percent and 57 percent, respectively. Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan has a completion rate of 63 percent. Varun Gandhi is at 71 percent while Vinay Katiyar is at the bottom of the list with 13 percent completion rate.
Maharashtra stalwart and NCP chief Sharad Pawar proves to be another high performer with his 98 per cent completion rate, while Praful Patel is at 31 percent.
In the Hindi heartland, SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav has scored 50 percent in Tamauli even as his daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav managed an 81 percent in Saidpur Sakri. BSP supremo Mayawati has recorded a 69 percent in Mall.
Among those who have achieved less than 20 percent, 43 MPs are from the BJP, 30 from the Congress and 10 from AIADMK.
Lack of funds and state help a big dampener
Find more details on The 100 percent club
Those well-versed with the scheme and its intricacies pointed out that most MPs had actually done quite well on social indicators and government social schemes. The first round of SAGY also had many MPs confused with how to go about it without any separate funding head.
E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan of AIADMK finished 58% of projects in Maravanamgalam GP in Tamilnadu but 19 percent of works could not be completed due to lack of funds. Congress’ Sushmita Dev could not complete most projects in Lakhipur in Assam due to implementation difficulties in the terrain, as was the case with many MPs in the Northeast.
Yet, there are also MPs who did manage to get things moving. Civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapati Raju acted fast on the biggest problem ailing the village of Dwarapudi in Andhra Pradesh — alcoholism. He closed down even licensed liquor shops in the village and it seems to have earned him considerable good will.
Textiles minister Smriti Irani managed to mobilise resources worth Rs 7 crore for her village Magharol (Gujarat). Ramdas Athawale banned plastic bags in Umroli (Maharashtra). A number of MPs have brought in solar lighting, soil health cards, better immunisation for women and children and helped farmers with seeds, trainings and equipment.
Convergence and coordination with the state government have been found to be critical to the scheme’s success. The rural development ministry, sources said, is now looking at ways to make the scheme more implementation-friendly.
Left not doing the right thing
Under the SAGY, a village development plan (VDP) is to be prepared for every gram panchayat with special focus on enabling every poor household to come out of poverty. A baseline survey with the specific objective of formulating VDPs and tracking the progress is adopted in the GP. The developmental change in SAGY is monitored through 35 indicators (Panchayat Darpan).
According to information available on the SAANJHI portal of the rural development ministry, 500 of the 543 Lok Sabha MPs and 203 of the 253 RS members identified a GP identified in Phase I.
None of the TMC MPs, however, picked a GP. In case of the Lok Sabha, president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen Asaduddin Owaisi and environment minister Dr Harshwardhan did not adopt any village.
In Rajya Sabha, a number of MPs chose not to pick a GP. They include Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja, Congress veteran Digvijay Singh, BJP’s Tarun Vijay, former commerce minister Anand Sharma, Congress’ Jairam Ramesh, JDU’s K.C. Tyagi and Pavan Verma, BSP’s Satish Mishra, SP’s Ram Gopal Yadav, TMC’s Derek ’O Brien and actor Rekha.
Infographics designed by Neera Majumdar