Civil servants work as a bridge between common people and govt. — Arunchal Pradesh CM

Itanagar, Aug. 24 (PTI): Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Tuesday termed the civil servants as the backbone of the state who works as a bridge between the common people and the government, as all policies and programmes are executed through them.

“Politicians will come and go every five years but you will be the permanent upholders of democracy,” Khandu told the 2020 batch of Arunachal Pradesh Civil Service (APCS) probationers while flagging-off their foundation training here.

Emphasising on the importance of training, he said officers without training will be like a misguided missile and urged the young officers to sincerely attend each course of the four-month long foundation training.

“This is not a flagging off ceremony this is the foundation laying ceremony of your career,” he said.

“You have the onus of ensuring every single paise of development fund is being judiciously used for the welfare of common people,” the chief minister said.

Giving details of the run-up to the proposed four-month training programme, Khandu revealed that during his district tours, in the times before the pandemic, he had interacted with few officers of the current batch serving as circle officers in remote areas.

“Many requested me for a proper training programme so that they could discharge their duties more efficiently. I could sense the enthusiasm and sincerity in them. So I immediately asked the chief secretary to chalk out a proper training programme for the current batch,” he said.

Khandu expressed satisfaction that the four-month foundation training is the first of its kind wherein the probationers will first undergo a course in IIM, Shillong, then at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussoorie, followed by a training programme at Arun Jaitley National Institute of Financial Management, Faridabad and finally at the state Administrative Training Institute, Naharlagun.

Khandu who visited LBSNAA on invitation to address the 2019 batch of IAS probationers had requested the authorities of the academy to help Arunachal Pradesh in whatever way possible.

The Arunachal Study Circle was formed in LNSNAA, where the 2020 batch APCS probationers will be trained for about a week.

Also, recently the state government had signed an MoU with Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Centre for Policy Research and Analysis, IIM Shillong for collaborating as a knowledge partner for capacity building of state government officers and to set up a satellite centre of IIM-S in the state for necessary policy interventions.

“We had announced in the Budget 2018-19 that our own Administrative Training Institute (ATI) would be converted into a state of the art training institute. Work on its development is going on, Khandu informed.

He added that to improve service delivery, the government enacted the Public Service Delivery Act, 2015 for prompt delivery of services to the citizen within a notified time frame, with provision of penalty for any delay in such delivery by the public servants.

“To address the problem of skill deficiency, we have decided to equip employees with necessary skills and improve their performance level through the State Training policy,” he added.

Khandu advised the civil servant probationers to always be approachable by the common people, be innovative and create solutions to problems.

He also suggested that after completion of the foundation training, the officers submit a report to the chief secretary on what they have learnt or gained that will help them discharge their duties and suggest if anything needs to changed or added to the training programme so that it can be further improved for future APCS officers.

57, including three differently able officers of the 2020 APCS batch will be attending the training programme.

Meanwhile, on the occasion, the newly compiled web portal of the ATI was launched by the chief minister. The ceremony was also attended by Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein.