119 MPs yet to adopt villages as per Modi scheme

The idea of adopting villages may be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s heart, but his own Cabinet colleagues and many of his fellow parliamentarians are yet to decide on which village they should look after.

The decision to adopt a village by parliamentarians was taken five months ago and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan and Minister of State for Urban Development Babul Supriyo are still undecided.

The scheme has already invited criticism from a section of MPs, including those from BJP who express their reservation privately, for not earmarking separate funds for the scheme and asking them to use the MPLAD fund.

Among the 119 MPs who are yet to select villages under Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) include, nine other BJP MPs. None of the seven MPs from Delhi, including Vardhan, have selected a village though one of them Ramesh Bidhuri claimed he had decided to look after a village near Bhatti Mines. However, Bidhuri’s claim is not reflected in the SAGY website that is updated almost on a daily basis.

Other prominent MPs like Digvijay Singh, Anand Sharma and Jairam Ramesh (all Congress), Sitaram Yechury (CPM), D Raja (CPI), K C Tyagi (JD-U), Derek O’Brien
(Trinamool) and Kirron Kher (BJP) are yet to take a final call.

From Karnataka, Congress leaders K Rahman Khan and B K Hariprasad, and industrialist Vijay Mallya are doing nothing in this regard, while MPs from West Bengal seem the least interested. At least 55 out of the 59 MPs from the state have not chosen a village.

While SP MP Naresh Agarwal has announced his decision to give up the village he adopted under the scheme, those like Tapan Sen (CPM MP from West Bengal) have decided not to adopt a village claiming the scheme is “flawed”.

“I don’t have any plan to adopt a village. It is a flawed concept. The money should be given for projects and not village,” Sen told Deccan Herald.

One  MP from Kerala, who wished not to be named, said some voters of a particular village even told him that they would not vote for him next time after adopting another village under the scheme.