The Modi government has embarked upon a major reform drive in the bureaucracy and civil services with creation of Capacity Building Commission (CBC) set up under the ambitious project National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB), also known as “Mission Karmayogi” which was approved by the union cabinet last September.
The Commission will play a central role in coordination and supervision of all the government offices, training institutes to monitor and evaluate the implementation of plans and create shared resources.
Additionally, it will also assist the Prime Minister's Public Human Resources Council in approving the annual capacity building plans and will make recommendations on the standardisation of training and capacity building, pedagogy and methodology besides suggesting policy interventions required in the areas of human resources management and capacity building of civil services at all levels in the government.
The exercise is aimed at making the government employees more "creative, proactive, professional and technology-enabled", ending the culture of working in silos and ensuring transparency in the governance process and decision making.
On Thursday, the Government set up the commission and roped in Adil Zainulbhai, chairman of Quality Council of India (QCI) and a private sector veteran, as the chairman of the newly formed commission to overhaul the bureaucratic structure in the country.
Besides him, Ramaswami Balasubramaniam has been appointed as member (HR) and Praveen Pardeshi as member (administration).
Mr Balasubramaniam is the founder of the Swamy Vivekanand Youth Movement while Mr Pardeshi is a 1985-batch IAS officer of Maharashtra cadre but he is currently the global programme coordinator for the Defeat-NCD (Non-Communicable Diseases) Partnership under the United Nations Institute for Training and Research.
Another person roped in by the government is Hemang Jani, a former senior private sector specialist, World Bank, has been appointed as the commission secretary.
As per the Gazette notification, functions and responsibilities of the commission would include:
a) Coordinate with departments, organizations and agencies of the government of India for evolving a harmonious de-siloed approach to improve capacity and build shared resources.
b) Facilitate preparations of annual capacity building plans of departments, ministries and participating organizations and submit the collated plans for approval from the PM’s Public Human Resource Council.
c) Prepare the annual HR report on the health of civil services along with target achievement and undertake audit of human resources available in government and assess outcomes of the capacity building efforts.
d) Providing all relevant information to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) for purposes of parliamentary oversight and Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) compliance.