Role of Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana in Rural Development: A Study of Jammu Division of Jammu and Kashmir.

The present paper is intended to examine the role of the ‘Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana’ in Rural Development in the Jammu district of Jammu and Kashmir. The Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana was launched by Govt. of India on 11th October 2014. Under this scheme, each MP needs to adopt a Gram Panchayat and looks after its holistic development by giving importance to infrastructural development in the selected Gram Panchayats. The scheme mainly focuses on improving the living standards of rural people by providing them with better facilities. But from the literature review, it was found that the implementation of this scheme in J&K has not come up to the expectations of people as it has failed to expedite work on projects in identified gram panchayats for different reasons. (Choudhary, 2022) In J&K, different Gram Panchayats in different blocks of thirteen districts were selected to develop as “Saansad Adarsh Grams”. Out of these thirteen districts, eight are in the Kashmir division and five are in the Jammu division. For the present study, Jammu district was selected for conducting the research. The present paper adopted Descriptive Research as a research design. The present study is based on a mixed method approach i.e., quantitative and qualitative methods. Both primary and secondary sources were consulted for data collection. For the purpose of conducting a primary study, a survey method was used. Jammu District was selected for conducting the study. Four categories of respondents were selected: including Household respondents, BDOs, MPs, and Sarpanches. Data collected from different respondents were analyzed through appropriate statistical tools and techniques. Hence this Study will be helpful in making a fresh assessment of the role of Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana in Rural Development, removing the policy gaps & barriers and assisting officials in bringing policy corrections in the implementation of the scheme.