Pradhan Mantri Adi Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAAGY)

Highlights:

• To enable an area based development approach, a new scheme called the Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAGY) was launched on a Pilot basis during 2009-10.
• The Scheme aims at integrated development of villages in which the population of Scheduled Castes is above 50%. 
• A total of 1000 villages from Tamil Nadu (225), Rajasthan (225), Bihar (225), Himachal Pradesh (225) and Assam (100) were selected for the Pilot phase. 
• Under this phase total Rs. 201 crore was released to the States. All the 1000 villages has been declared as Adarsh Gram.
• During 2014-15, PMAGY was further extended (Phase-I) to cover another 1500 villages across 11 States namely Andhra Pradesh (7), Assam (75), Chhattisgarh (175), Jharkhand (100), Haryana (12), Karnataka (201), Madhya Pradesh (327), Odisha (175), Punjab (162), Telangana (6) and Uttar Pradesh (260).

• The Scheme provides for setting up of various levels of Committees for guidance, monitoring and implementation. 
• These Committees, especially the Convergence Committees at the Village, District and State levels, are crucial to the implementation as they would assess the requirements as well as plan and execute the works/services that are needed to be undertaken under various Schemes for the wholesome development of the villages.
• Government of India has developed a well-defined structure for Planning, Implementation and Monitoring of the Scheme execution. 
• A website with the facility of collection of Household level data, assessment of village needs, prioritising the works, preparing the Village Development Plan and periodic monitoring of the Scheme has been made operational. 
• The web link of the site is https://pmagy.gov.in .

• The Scheme provides for An ‘Adarsh Gram’ is one wherein people have access to various basic services so that the minimum needs of all the sections of the society are fully met and disparities are reduced to a minimum. 
• These villages would have all such infrastructure and its residents will have access to all such basic services that are necessary for a dignified living, creating thereby an environment in which everyone is enabled to utilize her/his potential to the fullest

• The objective of this Scheme is to ensure integrated development of the selected villages with more than 50% SC population so that, inter alia, there is:
• (a) Adequate Infrastructure: All requisite infrastructure necessary for the socio-economic development needs are to be provided under the Scheme.
• (b) Improvement in Socio-Economic Indicators The identified socio-economic indicators, known as Monitorable Indicators, are to be improved so that the disparity between SC and non-SC population is eliminated and the level of indicators is raised to at least that of the National average. 
• More specifically, all BPL SC families should have food and livelihood security, all SC children should complete education at least up to the secondary level, all factors leading to maternal and infant mortality are addressed and incidence of malnutrition, especially amongst children and women, is eliminated.
• The particulars of the 50 Monitorable Indicators under 10 domains are listed in the next para. 

• i) Drinking water and Sanitation
• ii) Education
• iii) Health and Nutrition
• iv) Social Security
• v) Rural Roads and Housing
• vi) Electricity and Clean Fuel
• vii) Agricultural Practices etc.
• viii) Financial Inclusion
• ix) Digitization
• x) Livelihood and Skill Development