Hyderabad: Telangana ministers, TRS legislators, MLCs and other public representatives are trying to find ideal villages to adopt as part of the Grama Jyothi programme to be launched on Monday. The public representatives are ensuring that they select the ‘right village’ which can be developed quickly, since it could be taken as a benchmark of their performance by the Chief Minister in coming years.
Ministers have been asked to adopt up to five villages. MLAs must adopt one village in each mandal in their constituency, while MLCs have been asked to adopt their own village or any other village in their district.
They are taking feedback from ground-level public representatives like members of zilla and mandal parishads and sarpanches to select gram panchayats which have sound finances which can be spent during the programme.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao will launch the programme at Ganga-devipalli in Geesu-konda mandal, in Warangal district on Monday. The administration will be in the villages to devise development plans as part of the programme.
Mr Rao has directed all elected representatives to adopt villages in their districts and to develop them as model villages. The ambitious programme is aimed at spending Rs 25,000 crore to revive villages.
Interestingly, the Tollywood film Srimanthudu starring Mahesh Babu revolves around this concept.
Panchayat raj minister K.T. Rama Rao, whose department is monitoring the Grama Jyothi exercise, is said to be enthused by the success of the film at a time when the government is launching the programme. He is hopeful that the film’s success would encourage people to adopt villages like the film’s protagonist.
Mr Rama Rao recently tweeted: “On the eve of Gram Jyothi, Srimanthudu is a fab movie to catch: focus on rural development & social responsibility. Great job@urstrulyMahesh”. To this, the actor replied, “Thank u sir. Humbled...”
