Bhubaneswar: The Office of Hon’ble Rajya Sabha MP Shri Sujeet Kumar organized a national webinar on Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY). Mr. Himanshu Patel of Punsari Model Village of Gujarat, Dr. Sanjay Panda (retd. IAS officer), former Chief Secretary of Tripura and Dr. Aruna Sharma (retd. IAS officer), former senior policy maker and bestselling author joined the webinar. The webinar was organized in partnership with Sri Sri University, Xavier University and Kalinga Kusum Foundation.
Hon’ble MP Shri Sujeet Kumar, welcomed the distinguished guests and articulated the vision behind the virtual Global Development Dialogue (GDD). Mr. Kumar has identified two villages in his native district of Kalahandi for adoption under the SAGY scheme. In this backdrop he and his team conceptualized the SAGY Webinar for knowledge sharing and mutual learning.
Himanshu Patel shared the success story of Punsari Village and how its transformation has created interest in India and around the world in creating model villages. Mr. Patel has been working on this project for nearly two decades and shared how through patience, perseverance and engagement he has been able to create trust among the villagers and build valuable assets to sustain the initiatives. Mr. Patel has been invited to several states of India to train sarpanchs and other peoples’ representatives on how to replicate the Punsari model.
Dr. Sanjay Panda shared his experience in Odisha, Delhi & Tripura and argued in favor of customized solutions for rural development initiatives such as SAGY. He shared some of the key steps from his book ‘Making One plus One Eleven’on how to make changes in the villages transformational.
Dr. ArunaSharma shared her experience in the bureaucracy, academia and policy making. She advocated a four-ladder approachwhich include i) Quality Infrastructure, ii) Social Security, iii) Livelihood and iv) Community Participation for SAGY. She highlighted several other tips from her book “U @ Game Changer” on how public representatives can transform their constituencies.
Shri. Anubhav Patnaik, former MLA of Khandapada and current Advisor, Electronics & Information Technology, Govt of Odisha, shared his experience in developing Child Friendly Constituency (CFC) in Khandapada and how this was useful in the village development process.
Knowledge partners Prof Srinivas Subbarao from Sri Sri University and Prof Sutapa Pati from Xavier University shared their happiness to have been invited as partners and wanted to contribute to the SAGY project in their respective areas of expertise in rural entrepreneurship and sustainability.
Several representatives from industry, policy making, development practice, students and faculty members from different universities joined. The session was moderated by Mr. Kamala Kanta Dash from the MP Office.
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