On October 11, 2014 PM Narendra Modi launched the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana

The scheme encourages Members of Parliament from both Houses to identify and develop one village from their constituency as a model village by 2016, and two more by 2019, covering over 2,500 villages of the 6 lakh villages country-wide.

This is not a rupiya-paisa yojana but a demand-driven, people’s participatory scheme. There are 800 parliamentarians (The Lok Sabha has 543 MPs and the Rajya Sabha 250, 12 of whom are nominated) and in three years, 2,500-odd villages could get covered.

If States were to initiate their own similar schemes with MLAs, 6,000 to 7,000 villages could get covered. One good village can affect an entire area, and a viral effect could begin.

PM called it a scheme that would open the door for good politics, and inviting all MPs to select a village to develop on a demand-driven, rather than a supply-driven model, with people`s participation.

The PM  said that development in villages was often supply-oriented.

The Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana, has three distinct features - it would be

(a) demand driven

(b) inspired by society

(c) based on people`s participation.

PM  said that while democracy and politics were inseparable, damage was often caused by bad politics. This scheme would inspire a movement towards good politics, with MPs acting as facilitators and catalytic agents

PM  said that from independence till now, all Governments have worked for rural development. These attempts should be progressively modified with time, in tune with changes happening around the world.

He said though government schemes were working across the country, in each state there were a few villages that the state could be proud of. This shows that there was something extra that the leadership and people in those villages had done, beyond government schemes.

The PM  said this "something extra" is the spirit behind Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana.

The PM  sought inspiration from Loknayak Jayaprakash Narain on his anniversary, saying that people`s participation in development was essential in building an Adarsh Gram. He also paid tribute to Nanaji Deshmukh, who had worked towards the concept of village self-sufficiency.

The PM  said the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana will work through the leadership of Parliamentarians. He said that by 2016, one village will be developed by the MPs, and then by 2019, two more villages will be taken up. He said that if states also encouraged their legislators to take up the scheme - five to six more villages could be added in this timeframe. He said if even one village per block is developed, it has a cascading effect on other villages in that block.

The PM  said that various government schemes often worked in isolation - and this scheme would help MPs point out the bottlenecks in these schemes, leading to an outcome-oriented approach.

The PM  said MPs were free to pick up any village in their constituency, except their own village or their in-laws village.

Stating that the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana would provide a flexible approach towards development, the PM  expressed hope that the "Adarsh grams" would become places of pilgrimage for people interested in learning about rural development.