Govt packs off staff to villages in haste

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious Gram Swaraj Abhiyan, which began on April 14 with the aim of reaching out to around 21,000 poor households in villages across the country and seeking people’s feedback on the Centre’s various schemes, seems to have hit a logistical hitch.

While under secretary, deputy secretary and director-level officers from Central ministries have been packed off to these villages with the mandate of collecting feedback from rural households, the distribution of villages by the Centre among these officials seems to have gone awry. Some officers have been given just a single village to collect data, while their colleagues don’t seem to be as lucky as many of them have got 40 to 155 villages to cover.

According to sources privy to details of the mega campaign, a particular official has been asked to cover 155 villages, while another officer has been deputed to tour 96 villages. Then there is another example of an officer who has been assigned just one village.

These are just some of the random examples of how the villages seem to have been distributed in a hurry by the government among the officers assigned to complete this “challenging” task.

With the mission culminating on May 5, it would be humanly impossible for a single official to cover so many villages in just three weeks time.

Moreover, with several of these villages situated in difficult terrain and mountainous regions and even in areas where there are law and order issues, it would be quite a difficult task for them to fulfil, sources felt.

According to the official missive sent to all the chief secretaries of states from the Centre, the Gram Swaraj Abhiyan’s another significant objective is to promote social harmony, enrolling the rural poor in the government’s new initiatives and especially to train their attention on Centre’s promise to double farmers’ income.

The campaign notably started on Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar’s birthday on April 14. Considering the fact that several violent incidents against the dalit community were reported from across the country in the first week of April, the campaign this year assumed a lot of political significance.

Also as the Lok Sabha polls are just a year away, the Modi dispensation clearly wants to send out a message to the dalit community that the Centre is steadfastly behind them.

Between April 14 and May 5, the government has lined up events on a daily basis in villages across the country where all the social initiatives undertaken by the Centre will be highlighted to the people. On May 5, the Prime Minister will address all the villages which will be simultaneously shown through live streaming.