NEW DELHI: In a surprise move, the BJP-led NDA government in the Centre on Friday nominated Shillong MP Vincent H Pala as the lone Congress member to the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana Committee meant exclusively for village development.
The 22-member Committee is headed by Union Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister, Birender Singh as the Chairperson. The other ministers of the Committee include Kalraj Mishra (MSE), Ravi Shankar Prasad (IT), Jagat Prasad Nada (Health), Jual Oram (Tribal Affairs), Radha Mohan Singh (Agriculture), Thawar C Ghelot (Social Justice), Smriti Zubin Irani (HRD). Senior Ministers of the Committee include Rajiv Pratap Rudy (Skill Development), Prakash Javedkar (Environment), Piyush Goyal (Power), Sarbananda Sonowal (Sports and Youth Affairs), Gen V K Singh (Statistics) and Rao Inderjit Signh (Planning).
Pala is the only UPA member in the Committee while TDP’s K R M Naidu is the only other non-BJP member of the Committee.
The SAGY is a rural development programme broadly focusing upon the development in the villages which includes social development, cultural development and spread motivation among the people on social mobilization of the village community. The programme was launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the birth anniversary of Jayaprakash Narayan, on October 11 last year.
Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana was initiated to bring the member of parliament of all the political parties under the same umbrella while taking the responsibility of developing physical and institutional infrastructure in villages and turn them into model villages. The Committee will review the status of overall implementation of the vital scheme, an official announcement said. It will also identify bottlenecks and problems and initiate remedial action.
