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Meghalaya govt to sponsor courses for officials to upscale efficiency
The Meghalaya government has also decided to encourage and incentivise the officers to continue learning by pursuing courses at various universities, which provide higher degrees and diploma courses
The Meghalaya government has decided to sponsor up to ₹15 lakh for senior level officers for undertaking the mid-career courses in order to upscale the efficiency of the bureaucracy in the state.
Informing this after the Cabinet meeting on Friday, minister Paul Lyngdoh said that the Cabinet took up the item of mid-career sponsored courses for senior level officers belonging to All India Services, Meghalaya Civil Service, Meghalaya Police Service, Forest Service and Finance Service for toning up and upscaling the efficiency of the bureaucracy of the state, which is a very important link between the political executive and the public.
He said the government has also decided to encourage and incentivise the officers to continue learning by pursuing courses at various universities, which provide higher degrees and diploma courses.
“(Such courses) will be undertaken by our officers without any dislocation from work, meaning that they will not be taking any leave in the course of the training. There will be no study leave, they will be in a position to undertake such courses in the weekends or post office hours,” he said.
The courses identified by the government include MBA for working professionals and Ph.D programme offered by IIM Shillong, Masters in Public Policies, an online course offered by the OP Jindal Global University, professional certificates programmes and data sciences and AI, an online course offered by the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore and part time Ph.D for working professionals offered by Jindal Global Law Schools.
“To incentivise these officers, the state government has agreed to the proposal to fund the tuition fees for the programme up to a limit of ₹15 lakh for which there are conditions tied to it. For example, the officer should have at least 7 years of service left, should undertake the course on a part time basis without any study leave and every year up to 3 officers who gained admission to a course of study approved by the government will be sponsored by the government,” Lyngdoh said.
The minister informed that the programme will be application based and a committee headed by the chief secretary has been constituted to review and approve the application of such officers.
When asked, Lyngdoh further clarified that the sponsor amount will be for each officer and said, “The whole idea is we need to upscale the efficiency of our officers. A lot of what the government is trying to do suffers when officers are not qualified enough to understand some of the nitty-gritty of administration. For instance, like noting on files which are not clear, which shows lack of depth of understanding of the officers. So, what do we do in such cases, we have access to an online course like the IIM, so we will take advantage of such courses.”
He also maintained that the amount which the government is investing is also reimbursable in case the officials concerned fail to complete the course or fail to successfully achieve results.
Also stating that the government is not questioning the officers’ competency, Lyngdoh said, “We are not questioning their competence. We are saying that even if you are competent, you should keep reorienting yourselves, you may be so well educated but if you stop reading for the last five years, then you are not as good as five years ago.”
The minister said that even officers, who do not belong to the cadres like the secretary, joint secretary or deputy secretary, should also undergo regular orientation programmes.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet has also approved the draft of the Independence Day speech highlighting the various achievements of the government since it took over.
