Critically assess the 'Adarsh Gram' approach to area-based development of Scheduled Castes. How far does it address intra-village caste disparities?

The Adarsh Gram component of PM-AJAY began in FY 2021-22 and is fully centrally funded. It turns villages with ≥40% SC population and at least 500 people into model villages. In these villages everyone should get basic services and disparities should fall "to a minimum" [1]. The approach gives effect to Article 46, but targeting by area reduces caste gaps only partly.

Strengths

• Saturation through convergence: gap-filling funds (up to 50% of the allocation) are added on top of existing Central and State schemes [1]. 47,328 villages have been selected [2].
• Bottom-up planning: 27,032 Village Development Plans list what each village needs [1].
• Visible results: 18,093 villages were declared Adarsh Gram as on 8 September 2026 [1].
• Digital accountability: the AJAY App runs field surveys in 24 languages and requires geo-tagged, time-stamped photos of assets [3].

Weaknesses

• Slow saturation: only about 38% of the 47,243 covered villages have been declared [1]. Only 46,642 of 3,28,131 identified works are complete [2].
• Planning deficit: more than 20,000 villages still have no Village Development Plan, so gap-filling cannot start there [1].
• Outputs over outcomes: a photo proves that an asset exists, not that people use it or that it is of good quality [3].
• Limited, discretionary funding: it is an executive scheme serving a group that is 16.6% of India's population [1]. It depends on ministries meeting their DAPSC earmarking, which it cannot enforce [4].

Intra-village caste disparities: addressed only partly

• Where it helps: shared roads, water and electricity reach SC households by default. Around 1.1 crore individual beneficiaries have also been identified for targeted help [2].
• Where it falls short:
• Hamlet blind spot: declaration depends on village-level indicators, so a separate SC hamlet can lag behind while the village average meets the targets.
• Diluted targeting: in a village that is 40% SC, up to 60% of the people using shared assets may be non-SC [1].
• Social exclusion not measured: infrastructure indicators do not capture denied access to common resources or practices that Article 17 forbids.

Overall, Adarsh Gram has moved SC welfare from scattered transfers to planned saturation of whole villages. But it measures villages, not caste gaps within them. The way forward:

• set hamlet-wise, caste-disaggregated targets in Village Development Plans;
• add use and outcome data to the AJAY App;
• set deadlines for completing Village Development Plans;
• hold Gram Sabha social audits.

This would make "disparities reduced to a minimum" something that can be measured, advancing Article 46 and SDG 10.