The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved ‘Mission Karmayogi', dubbed as the biggest bureaucratic reform initiative, aimed at capacity building of government employees to make them more "creative, proactive, professional and technology-enabled".
The core guiding principles of the competency-driven programme will be to support a transition from “rules based to roles based” HR management to prepare the Indian civil servant for the future, according to a government statement.
"This is the biggest human resource development programme in the government," Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said during a press briefing after the cabinet meeting.
To cover around 46 lakh central employees, a sum of Rs 510.86 crore will be spent over five years from 2020-21 to 2024-25 under Mission Karmayogi or the National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB), according to the statement
A council, comprising select union ministers, chief ministers, eminent public HR practitioners among others and headed by the prime minister, will serve as the apex body for providing strategic direction, while a Capacity Building Commission is also proposed to be set up.
The programme will help in overcoming existing impediments like “lack of lifelong & continuous learning environment”, “evolution of silos at department level preventing shared understanding of India's development aspirations” and “diverse and fragmented training landscape”, among others.
"Today the Union Cabinet under Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to bring this very big, post-recruitment reform, where an opportunity will be given to officers and employees to improve their performance," Javadekar said.
Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh, who was also present at the briefing, said the scheme will help end subjective evaluation, and ensure scientifically-devised, objective and real-time assessment of employees.
Mission Karmayogi is an endeavour "to reincarnate a government servant into an ideal karmayogi to serve the nation by enabling him to be creative, to be constructive, to be pro-active and technically empowered", Singh told reporters.
“The endeavour is also to end the culture of working in silos and to overcome the multiplicity of training curriculum, which we have because of the institutions spread all over the country, with the introduction of a common platform for the uniform realisation of THE nation's vision and our shared aspiration and our shared future goals," he said.
This way, Singh said, it will provide a mechanism for continuous capacity building, a constant updating of the talent pool and also provide an equal opportunity of professional as well as personal growth and a stream of self-training for value addition at all levels.
It is a competency-driven human resource management policy, aimed at assigning the “right person to the right role” and align the work allocation of civil servants by matching their competencies to the requirements of the post, the statement said.
“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,” said the statement issued by the personnel ministry.
It will build future-ready civil service with the right attitude, skills and knowledge, aligned to the vision of new India, according to a presentation given during the media briefing by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) Secretary C Chandramouli.
“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 its capacity building,” it said.
It is also proposed to set up the Capacity Building Commission with a view to ensure a uniform approach in managing and regulating the capacity building ecosystem on a collaborative and co-sharing basis, the statement said.
The Commission will also come out with an ‘Annual State of Civil Service Report', it said.
There will also a Special Purpose Vehicle for owning and operating the digital assets and technological platform for online training and a coordination unit headed by the Cabinet Secretary for the programme, the statement said.
“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,” it said.
The expenditure is partly funded by multilateral assistance to the tune of USD 50 million, the statement said.
An integrated government online training platform -- iGOTKarmayogi -- will be set up for the mission.
“iGOT-Karmayogi platform brings the scale and state-of-the-art infrastructure to augment the capacities of over two crore officials in India,” it said.
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, the statement said.
