The News Minute| November 16, 2014| 2.26 pm ISTThe Sansaad Adarsh Gram Yojana was announced by the Prime Minister on Independence Day. The program looks at developing all villages of India, into ‘model villages’. The way this works is that every Member of Parliament has to adopt one village and work towards developing it. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, recently took the first step and adopted the village of Jayapur in Varanasi. A handful of other politicians have followed suit and here is a list:1. PM Modi adopted the village of Jayapur when he visited his Varanasi constituency earlier in November. 2. Hema Malini adopted Raval village last week. The village is close to her constituency of Mathura3. Rahul Gandhi, not to be outdone by PM, adopted the village of Deeh in Amethi. 4. Sonia Gandhi, along with her son, adopted Udwa in Rae Bareli5. DMK’s Kanimozhi adopted Srivenkateswarapuram Panchayat in Thoothukudi district. 6. The MoS of Commerce, Nirmala Sitharaman chose two villages from the East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, namely Pedamainavanilanka and Toorputallu. 7. NCP’s Sharad Pawar decided to adopt the drought-prone village of Khatav from the district of Satara. 8. Ex-criketer, Sachin Tendulkar adopted the village of Puttamrajuvari Kandriga in the district of Nellore in Andhra Pradesh. Other MPs such as Sushma Swaraj and Sharad Yadav among 59 others have also submitted their proposals for adopting villages to the PM. But what does it mean to adopt a village? According to the government’s Adarsh Gram Yojana website, every MP in the Parliament has to adopt one village from their own constituency and develop it. Villages with a population of 3,000- 5,000 and 1,000-3,000 in hilly areas are eligible for the program. The development will take place with the implementation of many state and center-run programs. It is the MP’s onus to design and set the parameters of the kind of development he/she would like to concentrate on most. The program also looks at providing each village with smart schools, basic amenities for health and hygiene and pucca housing. Each MP has to achieve this degree of development by 2016, after which they will adopt at least two more villages for the same. Hence by 2019, the government is looking at developing at least 2,500 villages. But with only 1/6th of MPs having adopted villages so far, it looks like they have a long way to go.