Adopt a Village: Modi tells MPs

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched an ambitious village development project under which each MP will adopt three villages and ensure their development. 

Under the program called the ‘Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana’, each MP will take the responsibility of developing physical and institutional infrastructure in three villages by 2019. The goal is to develop three model villages each by March 2019 of which one would be developed by 2016. If nearly 800 MPs develop three villages each by 2019, around 2,500 villages will be covered​. The scheme is for the poor, farmers and villagers, Modi said.

Launching the project on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan, the PM underlined the need to formulate schemes in accordance with the changing times. The speed of change must also be increased. Schemes are for every village but why is it that only a few of them stood out? Because some people there had different ways of thinking.

Invoking Mahatma Gandhi, Modi said the ‘Father of the Nation’ always spoke about villages. “He returned to India in 1915 and began to fight for the rights of people in villages.” Parliament should be involved with every aspect of rural development in India, insisted Modi.

Putting forward a condition, Modi said apart from his or her own village, MPs can select whichever village they want. Inspiring the Parliamentarians, Modi said he, too, has to select a village in his constituency Varanasi. “I will go there, discuss and decide.”