After the reign of Chaudhary Charan Singh, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi, we forgot that we have primarily been an agrarian economy. Then came Narsimha Rao and Manmohan Singh and they said, “privatize”, “liberalize”. Private medical, engineering and marine colleges were opened and everything became liberal from entry to passing. In this rush, agriculture was forgotten. Corruption became rampant and only a handful privileged reaped all the benefits of it which continues till date.
MPs and MLAs came from rural and semi urban areas but built bungalows and flats in metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Delhi etc. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that all MPs will adopt one village. Modi also had launched the ‘Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana’ promising to bring a demand driven model for village development and expressed confidence that the scheme with its “constructive politics” will have a “viral effect” across the nation. Under the programme, each MP will take the responsibility of developing physical and institutional infrastructure in three villages by 2019.
Modi “adopted” Jayapur under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana. A mere 25 kilometres from Varanasi, Jayapur has become a metaphor for model village development after Modi’s endorsement. The Prime Minister’s Office was constantly in touch and was monitoring the work here. Modi said that it is not MPs who are taking guardianship of the village under the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana, but villagers who were taking MPs under their wing, through this scheme. Almost a year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked parliamentarians to adopt a village and develop it into a model village, 107 MPs, including Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and nine other BJP MPs, have not signed up for the initiative. Since these ministers are secure for five years so they need not bother of the outcomes.
Agrarian economy must be revitalized by empowering gram panchayats with close supervision by local level, District and Tehsil level officers. Take foreign assistance for enriching barren land because our politicians and high officers will never take interest in it. The biggest disappointment is that Modi and his ministers do not seem to be interested in implementing this task which we earnestly expected prior to the Lok Sabha elections. On the other hand, the population is increasing day by day whereas land is shrinking. However, nobody is thinking about how to control the rising population.