ERachol, a village in Salcete might have hoped for something better when Rajya Sabha MP, Shantaram Naik adopted it for development under the Sansad Adarsh Gram panchayat Yojana (SAGY). A year later that development is yet to get off the starting blocks. Several projects like construction of protective walls and bandharas, desilting of ponds under the water resources department, construction of a community hall under the Deen Dayal scheme, upgradation of a playground by the ports department and ornamental lighting under the tourism department, have failed to take off. Nothing has happened so far and a question mark hangs over the MP, whose duty it was to ensure that development under the scheme was undertaken.
The scheme was launched last year with the aim of bringing holistic development to villages. Each MP was told to adopt one village and after work was completed to take on the responsibility of upgrading two more before 2017. At the Central level the Ministry for Rural Development would act as the nodal agency with two national level committees comprising officers and representatives of every ministry connected with rural level. Since a lot of schemes are overseen by the state an empowered committee was to be formed with the chief secretary as the chairperson and at least two civil society representatives as members. The state level committee was tasked with meeting every quarter to monitor progress of the scheme. The idea was make MPs take ownership of the scheme and work with the state government to ensure focused development in the adopted village. Since no financial allocation was made for the scheme it essentially meant the MP would have to cajole the State and Central agencies to release funds under existing schemes and it seems Naik failed to keep a watchful eye on the scheme or flag off non-cooperation to the national level committee.
On the other hand it is not as though the scheme is flawless because it does not take into account party politics. In the present instance Rachol falls in Congress territory. Naik is a Congress MP and the state government is run by the BJP. This is not an ideal combination for development and perhaps the problem lies with the choice of village. There are many villages which are more backward than Rachol and which could do with additional attention. Also, would the BJP allow a Congress MP to get credit for development of a village? Although the aim of the scheme is to make people drive development and create models for local level development and governance, it contains inbuilt political blocks.
There is no reason to believe that Naik would have succeeded if he had chosen a village located in BJP territory because development requires a sustained effort and greater vigilance, by the people and their elected representatives. Naik has a point when he says that without financial allocation development is difficult, but what the MP needs to prove to the people that he left no stone unturned to ensure that Rachol was put on the development map. He has to show that he knocked on the doors of the state level committee headed by the chief secretary and the national level panels and prove that the scheme failed in Rachol on account of a blinkered state government and inherent contradictions and not because of his personal failing as an MP.
