Civil servants are backbone of Nagaland, says APC

Director General, Administrative Training Institution (ATI) and Agriculture Production Commissioner, R Binchilo Thong, on Tuesday said civil servants were the backbone of the state, working as a bridge between the common people and the government, as all policies and programmes are processed and executed through them.

He was speaking at the combined inaugural function of the NCS (P) 2023 batch foundation course and the 52nd Batch NSS (Probationers) foundation course at Vision Nagaland Hall, ATI Kohima.

 He said the political executive may change every five years but civil servants will be working for the welfare of the people for many years, according to an update from DIPR.

‘Being fresh entrants into government service, training becomes more important because the education of the recruits before entering into government services is mostly degree-oriented; whereas training fills the gaps between learning and practical requirements by giving a broad framework or idea of what to do in the workplace initially.

‘It improves the occupational skill and knowledge of the employee to work effectively with integrity and instill a sense of community service and belongingness and training imparts knowledge, shapes attitudes, cultivates skills and builds work-habits,’ it said.

He also mentioned that the focus is to train and mould the new officers in the desired direction and prepare them for government work equipped with all the requisite skills, knowledge and attitude to shoulder the responsibilities of a civil servant.

Addressing the NCS (P), he said the civil service that forms the core of the government in the districts and sub-divisions as field officers; and at senior level, brings all the grassroots experiences to the policy-making role by occupying key posts in various departments.

Meanwhile, he said the NSS is the ‘repository of knowledge, rules, conventions and all things about files and paper works in the Secretariat, which is the seat of the state government’.

He added that all other service officers, including those from the IAS and NCS, have a lot to learn from the NSS officers as they are the ‘main driving force’, who can clarify doubts and guide higher ranking senior officers with their expertise.

He also stated that both the NCS and NSS are equally important as both their services work hand-in -hand with each other to look after the administration of the state, and the objective of both services is to serve the people and implement the government schemes and programmes successfully.

Further, he exhorted them to be empathetic and committed to serving the community with an honest human approach, to have the knowledge and skills to comprehend, act accordingly and effectively in different scenarios, possess integrity, maintain good public relations and good communication skills, adapt and improvise to cope with the situation and bring in a new vision, new ideas, new approaches to solving problems in the field and to influence policy formulation in the government.