Unnat Bharat Abhiyan is yet to overcome teething problems

Hyderabad: The Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) launched by the Centre to rope in young students to come up with solutions to address the problems in villages is yet to overcome initial hiccups in two Telugu states.

According to sources, a total of 55 colleges in Telangana and 130 colleges in Andhra Pradesh have been registered under the scheme.

Speaking to The Hans India, a senior official from the Telangana State Higher Education (TSHED) said under this Central scheme each college has to adopt five villages.

Student teams from the colleges visit the villages and conduct the baseline survey to identify the problems, resources, development schemes being implemented etc.

"The entire plan is to identify the status of a village on different parameters and preparing a village development plan and forecasting road map for the village to accelerate sustainable development," he added.

The key component at the State level in rolling out the UBA was that the higher education or technical education secretaries acting as nodal officers have to facilitate and monitor the interaction of institutions with PRIs and District Administration.

They are also responsible in coordinating the efforts at the State level by involving the Panchayat Raj and rural development, SC and ST development, drinking water, agriculture, animal husbandry, power, information technology, science and technology departments to come out with a plan of action for the State.

However, several colleges participating in the programme in Telangana are not in a position to figure out what they have to do even after selecting five villages to take up the programme.

Elaborating on the problems being faced, the coordinator of the UBA at an engineering college said, "all of a sudden we were asked to register for the UBA from the higher-ups in the Technical Education Department.

The college had to give in and register. We only know that we have to conduct a survey and beyond that we have no idea what to do," he added.

However, the Jawaharlal Nehru Technology University, Hyderabad (JNTU-H), Jagityal, could complete the baseline survey of one village. "We could do as the District Collector asked the local panchayats to extend their cooperation to the students," said a faculty member.

The programme came to a halt in several colleges due to series of elections being held for the last six months in the State and the district level administration was busy and not able to extend the much-needed help to the students.

In contrast, the GMR Institute of Technology, Rajam, had completed the survey of one village and carrying out the same in three more villages.

Students from the Sri Venkateswara Engineering College for Women and Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS), Tirupati took up works under the UBA. The SVIMS has so far conducted various medical camps, but it is yet to carry out the baseline surveys of the village that they have chosen.

But, the Padmavathi Mahaila Viswavidyala could not roll out any work as students were busy in the State government programmes, semester and examination schedules.

Students are showing interest. However, there is none coming forward to tell them as to "what to do next" said another faculty member of a degree college from Nellore.

Further, the students are also insisting on credits for their work which can add up to their academic profile.