In News: Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAGY) aims at the overall development of selected SC majority villages.
About PMAGY
- Ministry: Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment
- Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana is a rural development programme launched by the central government in India in the financial year 2009–10 for the development of villages having a higher ratio of people belonging to the scheduled castes through convergence of central and state schemes and allocating financial funding on a per village basis.
- It aims to provide them with all the necessary facilities to ensure that the disparity between SC and non-SC population in terms of common socio-economic indicators is eliminated and the indicators are raised to at least the level of the national average.
- The performance of the scheme is being monitored in terms of achievement of the targets listed out in the Village Development Plan (VDP) prepared for each village.
- Under the PMAGY, the National Institute of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj has been identified to provide technical resource support at the national level.
Criteria for being Declared as Adarsh Village
As per the scheme, for a village to be declared as Adarsh village, a minimum of three of the targets listed below have to be achieved by the end of the third year of implementation of PMAGY:
- As far as possible, elimination of poverty, but reduction in its incidence by at least 50% within three years.
Universal adult literacy - 100% enrolment and retention of children at the elementary stage (I-VIII).
- Reduction of infant mortality rate (per thousand live births) to 30 and maternal mortality rate (per lakh) to 100, by 2012.
- Village should fulfil the Nirmal Gram Puraskar norms of the Deptt. of Drinking Water Supply, M/o Rural Development, ie, these villages should be 100 % open defecation free
- Access to a safe drinking water facility to all villagers on a sustainable basis.
- 100% institutional deliveries for pregnant women
- Full immunisation of children
- Achieving all-weather road connectivity to the village
- 100% registration of deaths and births in the village
- No child marriages, and child labour
- No public consumption of liquor and other intoxicating substances
- 100% allotment of Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awaas Yojana (PMGAY) houses to all eligible families
