Tata Trusts to develop 264 villages in Vijayawada under SAGY initiative

Tata Trusts to develop 264 villages in Vijayawada Lok Sabha constituency of Andhra Pradesh under Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) initiative to influence the lives of almost 1 million people through a proper planning and development centered on their needs.

• Tata Trusts has come forward with an objective to build self sustainable and self driven villages with a focus on the well-being and happiness of the poor in 264 villages. This initiative will be the first of its kind where a Trust had planned to bring about grass-root level changes and to develop model village under SAGY initiative. The project has excluded the Vijayawada city and other urban areas in the constituency.
• The entrepreneur turned politician, MP of Vijayawada Srinivas Kesineni had approached Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, seeking his collaboration to develop model villages in Vijayawada constituency under SAGY initiative launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014.
• Ratan Tata decided to take responsibility for all the villages in the constituency rather than taking few of them. Moreover, Chief Minister N Chanrababu Naidu had quickly endorsed the idea and promised to support the project by providing Rs 600-700 crore or more funds in addition to what these villages can get under the normal governmental schemes.
• Under this programme Tata Trusts will be engaged in data collection, micro planning and village development programmes while bringing convergence among various Central and state government schemes. Tata Trusts has already recruited 1,400 volunteers from these villages and trained them for the job besides paying a remuneration of Rs 7,000 to Rs 9,000 per month.