23-Dec-2021: The Minister addresses the Workshop on Mission Karmayogi – The Path Ahead, as part of celebration of Good Governance Week

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today said that the aim of “Mission Karmayogi” is to impart futuristic vision to civil services which could effectively determine the roadmap for next 25 years and shape the Century India of 2047.

Addressing the Workshop on Mission Karmayogi – The Path Ahead, as part of celebration of Good Governance Week, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the imperative need of shift from "rule" to "role" in governance is essential to meet PM Narendra Modi's goal of New India and live up to its aspirations. He said, the era of generalists is over and this is far more relevant to Administration as we are entering the age of super-specialisation. He said, a civil service ‘fit-for-purpose’ and ‘fit-for-future’ requires a competency driven capacity building approach that focuses on imparting competencies critical to discharge its roles and that is exactly the main goal of Mission Karmayogi.

Dwelling on the theme of Integration, Dr Jitendra Singh said that Indian Institute of Public Administration, IIPA has established a Mission-Karmayogi Resource Cell at IIPA and is working in close coordination with National Capacity Building Commission, LBSNAA and other central training institutions (CTIs). It may be reiterated that in October, this year the Minister had addressed the first-ever Joint Roundtable of 23 Central Training Institutions organized for Capacity Building, at Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) for bringing efficiency in delivery of services and “Ease of Living” for common man.

Referring to Prime Minister’s exhortation to the Civil Servants to be creative and constructive; to be imaginative and innovative; to be proactive and polite; to be professional and progressive; to be energetic and enabling; to be efficient and effective; and to be transparent and tech-enabled, Dr Jitendra Singh said, to achieve his vision, it is imperative that the civil servants across the country have the right set of attitudes, skills and knowledge. He said, keeping this in mind, the Government has undertaken several initiatives including the launch of the National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB). The programme is expected to integrate various dimensions of human resource management in government, such as capacity building through carefully curated and vetted digital e-learning material; deploying the right person to the right role through competency mapping; succession planning, etc.

Dr Jitendra Singh expressed hope that Mission Karmayogi will be a key enabler in continuously augmenting and enhancing delivery, and over time will be able to support in achieving the goal of $5 Trillion economy set by the Prime Minister. He said, the foundations of this Mission are rooted in the recognition that a citizen-centric civil service empowered with role right attitude, functional expertise and domain knowledge will result in improved ease of living and ease of doing business. He said, in the background of ever changing demographics, digital penetration as well as growing social and political awareness, there is a need to empower the civil servants to be more dynamic and professional.

Recalling the former Prime Minister Shri A. B. Vajpayee’s monumental contribution to Good Governance, Dr Jitendra Singh said, it’s an occasion to celebrate his vision of spreading awareness on accountability of the Government. The Minister said that he strongly believes that with citizen-centric governance at its heart, Mission Karmayogi will transform India’s new governance landscape and will deliver excellence in action and work for the welfare of the society.

Dr Jitendra Singh also unveiled the iGOT platform on the occasion with a short introduction.

Some of the other good governance initiatives of this Government to encourage efficient, transparent, corruption free, accountable and discretion free governance, following the maxim “Minimum Government - Maximum Governance” are –

1. e-Samiksha- A real time online monitoring system in respect of implementation of important Government programmes/projects;
2. e-Office- e-Office Mission Mode Project to switchover to paperless office and efficient decision making;
3. Self-certification of documents for appointments; Discontinuation of interview in recruitment to all Group ‘C’, Group ‘B’ (Non-Gazetted posts) to curb malpractices and for bringing objectivity to the selection process;
4. Multi-source feedback for empanelment for the posts of Joint Secretary and above; Intensive review for weeding out inefficient officials and officers of doubtful integrity by premature retirement;
5. Promoting e-Governance in a holistic manner;
6. ASO foundation training programme has been restructured and linked to 18 behavioural and 38 functional competencies and it is now being delivered by ISTM to 884 ASOs in different Ministries.

Shri P.K. Tripathy, Secretary, DoPT, Shri Sanjay Singh, Secretary, DARPG, Shri V. Srinivas, Special Secretary, DARPG; Smt Rashmi Chowdhary, Additional Secretary, DoPT, Shri. S.D. Shibulal, Chairman, Task Force, Prof R. Balasubramaniam, Member Capacity Building Commission, Shri Pankaj Bansal, Member, SPV and other senior officials, Distinguished Panelists, Nodal Officers and nominees from the Ministries and Departments of Government of India, Heads and Representatives of Central Training Institutes and Administrative Training Institutes joined the deliberations.  

2-Jul-2021: Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh says, Role more than Rule is important for today's Civil Servant

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space and Chairman IIPA, Dr Jitendra Singh said here today that “Role” more than “Rule” is, what is important for today’s Civil Servant.

Interacting with the participants of 47th APPPA (Advanced Professional Programme in Public Administration), Dr Jitendra Singh said, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) had moved a proposal which was approved by the Cabinet on 2nd September, 2020, thus paving the way for mission “Karmayogi” - the National Program for Civil Service Capacity Building (NPCSCB). This is a historic move aimed to reincarnate the Indian bureaucracy to suit the requirements of contemporary India and an attempt to recast the Indian Administrative Services in a manner that every officer is equipped, trained, updated and oriented to optimally discharge the role assigned to him rather than to remain a prisoner of rules.

The Minister also inaugurated a Lecture Hall named after Late T N Chaturvedi at Indian Institute of Public Administration, IIPA, New Delhi. The Minister said that it is a memorable and proud day for him  because he had personally had a great reflection,  as Shri Chaturvedi was a legendary personality having worked in different capacities during his chequered career. Chaturvedi had a multifaceted personality and man of high integrity who served as an IAS officer, CAG of India, twice Member of Parliament (Rajya sabha), and Governor and many other assignments.

Describing the Aspirational District Programme (ADP) conceived and inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a scientific and objective plan to optimally uplift every district of the country on the basis of various scientifically determined parameters, Dr Jitendra Singh said, it will be useful, if the participants of APPPA programme will visit some for the Aspirational Districts and spent time there to study the programme and also give their inputs.

The Minister was informed that in the 46th APPPA course, the participants got the opportunity to visit Gujarat, Sikkim, Darjeeling as part of their rural, urban and forward area visits and IIPA organized special lectures and talks on very relevant topics of Indo-China Border Conflicts, Indo-Pakistan Relations, Mission Karmayogi & FRAC Strategy, New Education Policy etc. which enriched the knowledge the participants of 46th APPPA.

Dr Jitendra Singh was pleased to share that IIPA designed and developed an excellent blended programme for the APPPA participants during the year during the commencement of the 46th APPPA course. He said, very few Institutions could conduct this type of long term training in Online mode successfully during this pandemic and added that this year also, the 47th APPPA course started on the scheduled time and IIPA came out with more excellent streams and contents. 

The APPPA course got started in 1975 and was first of its kind in the Mid-career training segment designed for middle level Civil Servants and Defence forces officers. Over 1580 officers have attended this course so far from 1975 and this programme has been the flagship programme of IIPA.

APPA deals in a variety of subjects useful for middle level officers to prepare them for more responsible leadership and decision-making positions. It encompasses a wide range of modules from Public Administration, Finance, Digital Governance, Cyber Security, Agriculture economics, Urban Governance and Consumer Protection to Environment and Climate Change and Social Systems. Along with these, it has different exposure visits also to actual sites like Urban/Rural visits and Forward Area tour. In all, I think, the participants would be immensely benefited from this course, the Minister hoped.

25-Mar-2021: Mission Karmayogi

The “National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building” (NPCSCB) has been approved by the Government on 2nd September,2020 providing the following Institutional Framework for civil service capacity building:

1. Prime Minister’s Public Human Resource Council (PMHRC);
2. Cabinet Secretariat Coordination Unit;
3. Capacity Building Commission;
4. Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV);  and 
5. Programme Management Unit (PMU) to provide program management and support services.

The Technical digital learning platform of Mission Karmayogi has become functional in pre-production (experimental) stage on which various types of learning courses are being uploaded by the Central and other training institutions. Ministries and Departments implementing important National flagships programs and projects have been requested to develop ‘e-content’ in respect of their programs and projects.

1. To provide strategic direction to civil service reforms and capacity building;
2. Preparation of annual capacity building plans;
3. To strengthen functional supervision over training institutions;
4. To provide a digital learning platform providing best in class learning content.
5. Improved availability of trained workforce for effective citizen centric delivery;
6. Enabling data-driven decisions for training personnel management
7. Increased transparency and accountability in governance.

Besides the NPCSCB, the Government is currently implementing following schemes namely-

1. Training for All Scheme  with an objective of capacity building of all government officials at National and State level.
2. Domestic Funding of Foreign Training (DFFT) scheme provides for short term and long-term training courses abroad through training courses at the best international institutions.
3. Funding and supporting Foundational & Mid-Career training of civil servants through Central Training Institutions.

2-Sep-2020: Cabinet approves "Mission Karmayogi"- National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB)

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has approved launching of a National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB) with the following institutional framework:-

1. Prime Minister's Public Human Resources (HR) Council,
2. Capacity Building Commission.
3. Special Purpose Vehicle for owning and operating the digital assets and the technological platform for online training,
4. Coordination Unit headed by the Cabinet Secretary.

Salient Features: NPCSCB has been carefully designed to lay the foundations for capacity building for Civil Servants so that they remain entrenched in Indian Culture and sensibilities and remain connected, with their roots, while they learn from the best institutions and practices across the world. The Programme will be delivered by setting up an Integrated Government Online Training-iGOTKarmayogiPlatform. The core guiding principles of the Programme will be:

1. Supporting Transition from 'Rules based' to 'Roles based* HR Management. Aligning work allocation of civil servants by matching their competencies to the requirements of the post.
2. To emphasize on 'on-site learning' to complement the ‘off-site’ learning,
3. To create an ecosystem of shared training infrastructure including that of learning materials, institutions and personnel,
4. To calibrate all Civil Service positions to a Framework of Roles, Activities and Competencies (FRACs) approach and to create and deliver learning content relevant to the identified FRACs in every Government entity,
5. To make available to all civil servants, an opportunity to continuously build and strengthen their Behavioral, Functional and Domain Competencies in their self-driven and mandated learning paths.
6. To enable all the Central Ministries and Departments and their Organizations to directly invest their resources towards co-creation  and sharing the collaborative and common ecosystem of learning through an annual financial subscription for every employee,
7. To encourage and partner with the best-in-class learning content creators including public training institutions, universities, start-tips and individual experts,
8. To undertake data analytics in respect of data emit provided by iGOT- Karmayogi  pertaining  to  various  aspects  of capacity  building,   content creation, user feedback and mapping of competencies and identify areas for policy reforms.

Objectives

It is also proposed to set up a Capacity Building Commission, with a view to ensure a uniform approach in managing and regulating the capacity building ecosystem on collaborative and co-sharing basis.

The role of Commission will be as under-

• To assist the PM Public Human Resources Council in approving the Annual Capacity Building Plans.
• To exercise functional supervision over all Central Training Institutions dealing with civil services capacity building.
• To create shared learning resources, including internal and external faculty and resource centers.
• To coordinate and supervise the implementation of the Capacity Building Plans with the stakeholder Departments.
• To make recommendations on standardization of training and capacity building, pedagogy and methodology
• To set norms for common mid-career training programs across all civil services.
• To suggest policy interventions required in the areas of HR Management and Capacity Building to the Government.

iGOT-Karmayogi platform brings the scale and state-of-the-art infrastructure to augment the capacities of over two crore officials in India. The platform is expected to evolve into a vibrant and world-class market place for content where carefully curated and vetted digital e-learning material will be made available. Besides capacity building, service matters like confirmation after probation period, deployment, work assignment and notification of vacancies etc. would eventually be integrated with the proposed competency framework.

Mission Karmayogi aims to prepare the Indian Civil Servant for the future by making him more creative, constructive, imaginative, innovative, proactive, professional, progressive, energetic, enabling, transparent and technology-enabled. Empowered with specific role-competencies, the civil servant will be able to ensure efficient service delivery of the highest quality standards.

Financial implications: To cover around 46 lakh Central employees, a sum of Rs.510.86 crore will be spent over a period of 5 years from 2020-21 to 2024-25. The expenditure is partly funded by multilateral assistance to the tune of USD 50 million. A wholly owned Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for NPCSCB will be set up under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013. The SPV will be a "not-for-profit" company and will own and manage iGOT-Karmayogi platform. The SPV will create and operationalize the content, market place and manage key business services of iGOT-Karmayogi platform, relating to content validation, independent proctored assessments and telemetry data availability. The SPV will own all Intellectual Property Rights on behalf of the Government of India. An appropriate monitoring and evaluation framework will also be put in place for performance evaluation of all users of the iGOT-Karmayogi platform so as to generate a dashboard view of Key Performance Indicators.

Background:  Capacity of Civil Services plays a vital role in rendering a wide variety of services, implementing welfare programs and performing core governance functions. A transformational change in Civil Service Capacity is proposed to be affected by organically linking the transformation of work culture, strengthening public institutions and adopting modern technology to build civil service capacity with the overall aim of ensuring efficient delivery of services to citizens.

A Public Human Resources Council comprising of select Union Ministers, Chief Ministers, eminent public HR practitioners, thinkers, global thought leaders and Public Service functionaries under the Chairmanship of Hon'ble Prime Minister will serve as the apex body for providing strategic direction to the task of Civil Services Reform and capacity building.