Little progress in 5 villages adopted by PU under Centre’s scheme

Patna: Even as governor Arif Mohammed Khan has directed the state universities to adopt five villages each and ensure their all-round development under the Union govt’s flagship programme of ‘Unnat Bharat Abhiyan’ (UBA), Patna University (PU) had already adopted five villages under this scheme as early as 2018.The university had also done some basic works in these selected villages to ensure their proper growth and development and turn them into ‘smart villages’, but due to reasons best known to the authorities alone, things did not progress satisfactorily.Initially, the village development work was entrusted to the National Service Scheme (NSS), which took up the matter in the right earnest and selected five villages of Patna district as per the suggestion of the district magistrate.

The selected villages are Dhibra (Jamsaut panchayat under Danapur block), Chhitnawan (Khashipur panchayat, Maner block), Dhaulpura (Marchi panchayat, Patna Sadar), Saim Chak (Chilbilli panchayat, Phulwari block) and Bahuwara (Chipura panchayat, Sampatchak block).The erstwhile NSS programme coordinator Atul Aditya Pandey told this newspaper that the district administration had helped the university to identify these villages for the development plan.

As per the plan, PU was expected to work closely with the district administration to provide customised technological solutions, undertake field studies, study the implementation of govt schemes and facilitate their implementation according to the local needs.

All the teachers, students, officials and non-teaching staff of the university and its colleges would be associated with this scheme for apprising them with the rural realities, he said.He further pointed out that PU students and faculty members were supposed to carry out studies of living conditions in the adopted villages and assess the local problems and needs. They would work out the possibilities of leveraging the technological interventions and the need to improve the processes in implementation of various govt schemes and prepare workable action plans for the selected villages. Such knowledge inputs would make their way into the development programmes in rural areas.In this process, Pandey said, faculty and students would be reoriented and connected to the rural masses so that their learning and research works also become more relevant to the society.PU students and teachers along with NSS volunteers also visited some of these villages and interacted with the villagers to have first-hand knowledge of their problems. The mukhiyas of villages had also extended their full cooperation to PU team members.However, after some time, the NSS transferred the entire work to the PU rural studies department to ensure better progress of the scheme, Pandey said.PU’s internal quality assurance cell (IQAC) director Birendra Prasad said PU would revisit the adopted villages and make a fresh start to ensure their all-round socio-economic and cultural development under the UBA scheme.