UP bureaucrats to join ministers in IIM Lucknow classroom tomorrow

IIM-L is holding a 3-module management+governance training for UP mandarins

Top Uttar Pradesh bureaucrats will share benches with the state council of ministers at the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM-L), on Sunday for the ongoing special training programme.

The three-part module designed for ministers was slated for September 8, 15 and 22. In the inaugural session last Sunday, chief minister Yogi Adityanath accompanied his ministerial colleagues for day-long training and refresher lessons in management and governance concepts at the IIM-L campus.

To make the programme inclusive and enable state legislative and executive to work as a cohesive unit, the remaining sessions will now comprise participation of senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers posted in key positions to attend the programme alongside the concerned minister.

IIM Lucknow Director Prof Archana Shukla told Business Standard on Saturday that the remaining two sessions would be held at the campus, although there were tentative plans to organise the modules at the state secretariat, Lok Bhawan.

She observed it was probably for the first time in India that two streams of management and governance had been merged by a B-school for public good and positive influencing.

“Normally, academic institutions think they have little to do with governance, government and social sector. But, I feel such institutions should accord the same priority to the state as to corporate sector for making a difference to society,” she added.

Shukla informed the Institute had yet not decided whether to give a formal structure to similar government sector mentoring programmes going forward. She said after the modules were completed, IIM-L would discuss the matter how to take it forward or to scale it up.

The modules were designed to apprise UP policymakers of methodologies pertaining to government project implementation, financial management, disposal of files and budgetary skills. Meanwhile, the institute is planning to later prepare a booklet on the training programme, detailing the priority agenda for the Adityanath government.

Each session is scheduled from 0900 hrs to 1800 hrs even as the programme had been mandated for all state ministers, especially those inducted in the council of ministers last month.

Since, the Adityanath government is set to complete two and half years in office on September 19, 2019, the ruling BJP is slowly bracing up for the coming 2022 elections in all its bearing.

The proposed refresher course at IIM-L is expected to groom state ministers in nuances of governance and budgetary management skills, so that they are able to ensure timely completion of ongoing projects in their respective departments by forging close ties with other departments and the bureaucracy.

Besides, the sessions would also delve into systems and practices to cultivate a positive image in the public through conduct and delivery of governance. The idea of IIM-L training session was mooted by CM’s economic advisor K V Raju.