1. Scheduled Castes (SCs), who constitute 16.6% of our population as per 2011 Census, have historically suffered social and educational disabilities and economic deprivation arising therefrom. With a view to bring them in the mainstream by socially and economically strengthen them, special provisions have been enshrined in the Constitution for advancement of their interests. These provisions range from measures to remove any kind of social disabilities imposed on them to ensure equality of opportunity in every sphere, to measures of positive discrimination to bring them on par with rest of the population.

2. Article 46 of Part IV ("Directive Principles of State Policy") of the Constitution enjoins upon the State to promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, in particular, of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. Article 38 (2) in the same Part also enjoins upon the State to minimize inequities in income, and to endeavour to eliminate inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities, not only amongst individuals but also amongst groups of people residing in different areas or engaged in different vocations.

3. Since Independence, the Government had taken a number of initiatives for development of SCs, which had yielded positive outcomes, and had also resulted in narrowing the gap between the Scheduled Castes and the rest of the population. However, the focus of most of the welfare Schemes of SCs had been mainly centred on individual beneficiaries, rather than on the integrated development of SC pockets.

1. Accordingly, with a view to enable an area based development approach, a new scheme called the Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAGY) was launched during 2009-10, following the Finance Minister’s declaration in his Budget Speech delivered on 6.7.2009. The Scheme aims at integrated development of villages which have the population of Scheduled Castes above 50%.

2. Objective of Schemes:The principal objective of the Scheme is integrated development of SC majority Villages:

(a) Primarily through convergent implementation of the relevant Central and State/UT Government Schemes; and

(b) To take up identified activities, which do not get covered under the existing Central and State Government Schemes, through ‘Gap-filling’ funds provided as Central Assistance to the extent of Rs.20.00 lakh per village.

3. The implementation of the Scheme was started on Pilot basis in 2009-10 and a total of 1000 villages from 05 States namely Tamil Nadu (225), Rajasthan (225), Bihar (225), Himachal Pradesh (225) and Assam (100) were selected for this phase.

4. During 2014-15, PMAGY was further extended (Phase-I) to cover another 1500 villages across 11 States namely Andhra Pradesh (7), Assam (75), Chhattisgarh (175), Jharkhand (100), Haryana (12), Karnataka (201), Madhya Pradesh (327), Odisha (175), Punjab (162), Telangana (6) and Uttar Pradesh (260).

1. In light of the benefits accruing to the residents of the villages through successful implementation of this Scheme, it was decided to extend the Scheme as a continuous one and take up new villages from 2018-19. For this, it was decided to consider inclusion of all those districts which have villages having total population ≥500 and with more than 50% persons belonging to the Scheduled Castes. The villages in descending order of SC population are proposed to be selected from each such district for implementation of the Scheme. As per this selection criteria there are a total of 27000 villages(approx) which are proposed to be covered under the Scheme by the end of 2024-25.

2. Revision of Scheme Guidelines: To ensure all round development of the selected villages, so that they can indeed become ‘Adarsh Grams’, the said Scheme was revised to capture the Gaps in critical socio-economic ‘Monitorable Indicators’ as part of various sectors/domains. These domains include water and sanitation, education, health and nutrition, agricultural best practices etc. amongst others.

3. New Approach for implementation: The identification of needs or Gaps with regard to the ‘Monitorable Indicators’ are based on a Need Assessment exercise. The ‘Village Development Plans’ (VDPs) are now based on the data collected as part of the Need Assessment exercise. The Scheme relies heavily on convergence with other initiatives of the Central and State/UT Governments for ensuring that the minimum infrastructure and critical services are made available to all the persons in the village, especially those belonging to the Scheduled Castes. PMAGY provides the platform for convergent implementation of other Schemes with the aim to achieve saturation in the various domains. Whereas it is expected that the major portion of the funds requirement for implementation would be met from other Central or State/UT Schemes, the ‘Gap-filling’ funds are provided under the Scheme, for those areas which cannot be covered otherwise.

4. Funding under the revised Scheme: For every new village selected, the Scheme provides for a total of Rs. 21 lakh of which Rs.20.00 lakh is for the ‘Gap-filling’ component and Rs.1.00 lakh is meant for ‘administrative expenses’ at the Centre, State, District and Village level in the ratio of 1:1:1:2.

Further, for continuous development of the villages already covered under the earlier phases, there would a component of an additional round of funding of Rs. 10 lakh per village from the infrastructure head of the Scheme of SCA to SCSP in convergence mode. Out of this, Rs.9.50 lakh per village would be utilized for ‘Gap-filling’ component and Rs.0.50 lakh per village will be distributed amongst the Centre, State, District and Village in a ratio of 1:1:1:2 for Administrative and other expenses.

Details of 'funding' and 'flow of fund' are explained at para-9 and 10 of the Scheme Guidelines. Initially, the State Government/UT Administration will release the entire admissible funds under ‘Administrative Expenses’ to the District Administrations for carrying out capacity building, administrative expenses, awareness generation and initiating non cost based activities. Thereafter the entire admissible funds under the ‘Gap-filling’ component i.e. Rs.20.00 lakh per village will be released by the State Government to the District Administration once the VDP of the selected villages is approved by their DLCC so that the planned works can be executed without any delay.

5. Project Monitoring: The Scheme provides for setting up of Committees at various levels for guidance, monitoring and implementation of the scheme at that level. These Committees, especially the Convergence Committees at the Village, District and State levels, are crucial to the implementation as they would assess the requirements as well as plan and execute the works/services that are needed to be undertaken under various Schemes for the wholesome development of the villages.

The Government of India has also developed a well-defined structure for Planning, Implementation and Monitoring of the Scheme execution. A website with the facility of collection of Household level data, assessment of village needs, prioritising the works, preparing the Village Development Plan and periodic monitoring of the Scheme has been made operational. The web link of the site is http://pmagy.gov.in.

A. Financial Year-wise releases under the Scheme (Rs. in Crore):

Year	Budget Estimate	Revised Estimate	Expenditure
Up to 2013-14	-	-	201.00
2014-15	30.00	30.00	30.00
2015-16	200.00	200.00	195.82
2016-17	90.00	50.00	62.68
2017-18	40.00	40.00	39.00
2018-19	70.00	140.00	167.876
2019-20	390.00	718.00	717.956
2020-21	700.00	-	-

B. Pilot Phase:

Sl. No.	State	No. of villages	No of Villages declared  ‘Adarsh Gram’	Total Fund Released (Rs. In Cr.)	UC Submitted
1	Assam	100	100	20.10	20.10
2	Bihar	225	225	45.225	45.225
3	Himachal Pradesh	225	44	45.255	45.15
4	Rajasthan	225	225	45.255	45.15
5	Tamil Nadu	225	225	45.225	45.15
TOTAL		1000	819

C.Phase-I:

Sl. No.	State	Villages selected	Village found ineligible	Balance village	‘Adarsh Gram’ declared
1	Assam	75	07	68	0
2	Uttar Pradesh	260	0	260	140
3	Madhya Pradesh	327	01	326	0
4	Karnataka	201	0	201	0
5	Punjab	162	02	160	0
6	Odisha	175	0	175	0
7	Jharkhand	100	0	100	0
8	Chhattisgarh	175	0	175	0
9	Haryana	12	03	09	09
10	Andhra Pradesh	7	0	07	0
11	Telangana	6	0	06	0
TOTAL		1500	13	1487	149

Sl	State	Central Assistance Released (Rs. Cr)						Total
		14-15	15-16	16-17	17-18	18-19	19-20
1	Assam			15.75		3.75		19.50
2	Uttar Pradesh	1.00	42.00	1.10	8.65	1.85		54.60
3	Madhya Pradesh	7.70	47.32	3.15	10.50			68.67
4	Karnataka	0.10	40.00	2.11				42.21
5	Punjab	18.70	3.50	1.32	16.10			39.62
6	Odisha		21.00	15.75			8.75	45.50
7	Jharkhand		21.00				5.00	26.00
8	Chhattisgarh		21.00	20.75	3.75			45.50
9	Haryana	1.20		1.32				2.52
10	Andhra Pradesh	0.70		0.77				1.47
11	Telangana	0.60		0.66				1.26
Total		30.00	195.82	62.68	39.00	5.60	13.75	346.85

D. Selection of Villages Since 2018-19 of the Scheme and release of Fund:

(i) The list of the villages selected during 2018-19 and 2019-20 for Scheme implementation are as under:

Sl No	State/UT	No of Eligible Villages	Villages already covered under Pilot Phase	Villages already covered during Phase-I	Villages selected under Phase-II			Remaining Eligible Villages
					2018-19	2019-20	2020-21
1	ANDHRA PRADESH	493	0	6	99	187	150	51
2	ASSAM	617	74	57	238	137	66	45
3	BIHAR	1456	128	0	348	268	0	712
4	CHHATTISGARH	769	0	127	128	201	198	115
5	GUJARAT	25	0	0	25	0	0	0
6	HARYANA	355	0	11	137	82	60	65
7	HIMACHAL PRADESH	413	60	0	90	159	59	45
8	J&K	261	0	0	71	190	0	0
9	JHARKHAND	720	0	96	129	181	158	156
10	KARNATAKA	1315	0	165	239	508	313	90
11	KERALA	2	0	0	1	0	0	0
12	MADHYA PRADESH	1146	0	124	333	516	117	56
13	MAHARASHTRA	277	0	0	145	62	0	70
14	MANIPUR	16	0	0	12	4	0	0
15	MEGHALAYA	4	0	0	4	0	0	0
16	ODISHA	986	0	131	192	347	190	126
17	PUDUCHERRY	10	0	0	10	0	0	0
18	PUNJAB	2089	0	152	161	211	453	1112
19	RAJASTHAN	1402	140	0	288	467	285	222
20	TAMIL NADU	2044	212	0	271	206	0	1355
21	TELANGANA	169	0	5	133	31	0	0
22	TRIPURA	30	0	0	31	0	0	0
23	UTTAR PRADESH	6371	0	221	675	1565	1485	2425
24	UTTARAKHAND	304	0	0	124	70	50	60
25	WEST BENGAL	5617	0	0	0	0	0	5617
TOTAL		26891	614	1095	3884	5392	3584	12322

(ii) Fund Released Since 2018-19 under the Scheme (as on 31.08.2020):

Sl No	State/UT	Year-wise Central Assistance released under Phase II of PMAGY (amount in lakh)
		2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	TOTAL
1	ANDHRA PRADESH	1069.00	1872.60	-	2941.60
2	ASSAM	2475.20	904.60	-	3379.80
3	BIHAR	3092.80	3420.80	-	6513.60
4	CHHATTISGARH	1400.20	4582.00	-	5982.20
5	GUJARAT	260.00	260.00	-	520.00
6	HARYANA	1534.00	633.60	-	2167.60
7	HIMACHAL PRADESH	936.00	3491.60	-	4427.60
8	J&K	738.40	2052.00	-	2790.40
9	JHARKHAND	1569.00	1222.70	-	2791.70
10	KARNATAKA	2733.00	5275.40	-	8008.40
11	KERALA	10.40	10.80	-	21.20
12	MADHYA PRADESH	4126.00	11846.50	-	15972.50
13	MAHARASHTRA	1507.60	669.60	-	2177.20
14	MANIPUR	124.80	208.00	-	332.80
15	MEGHALAYA	41.60	-	-	41.60
16	ODISHA	2818.00	1787.60	-	4605.60
17	PUDUCHERRY	104.00	63.45	-	167.45
18	PUNJAB	1674.00	2035.80	-	3709.80
19	RAJASTHAN	2995.00	10379.00	-	13374.00
20	TAMIL NADU	2818.40	2224.80	-	5043.20
21	TELANGANA	1433.00	216.00	-	1649.00
22	TRIPURA	322.00	302.00	-	624.00
23	UTTAR PRADESH	7505.00	16430.35	-	23935.35
24	UTTARAKHAND	1289.60	756.00	-	2045.60
25	WEST BENGAL	-	-	-	-
TOTAL		42577.00	70645.20		113222.20

Updated On : 15-09-2020