Mission Karmayogi

Why in the news?

Recently, Capacity Building Commission (CBC), launched in 2021, as part of National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB) - Mission Karmayogi has completed three years.

About NPCSCB - Mission Karmayogi 

• NPCSCB aims to create a professional, well-trained and future-looking civil service, that is imbued with a shared understanding of India's developmental aspirations, national programs and priorities.
• NPCSCB cover all civil servants (including contractual employees) across different ministries, department organisations and agencies of the Union Government. 
  • The willing state governments will also be enabled to align their capacity building plans on similar lines.

• Guiding Principles of Mission Karmayogi
  • Shift from rule to role based training and capacity building: This means a shift from rule-based, supply-driven capacity building to role-based, demand-driven capacity building.
  • Moving to a competency driven approach for capacity development: Competencies can be defined as a combination of attitudes, skills and knowledge (ASK) that enable an individual to perform a task or activity successfully in a given job.
  • 70-20-10 Mandate: 70% of learning comes from on the job experiences and reflections, 20% is derived from working with others; and 10% comes from planned training.
  • Link goal setting, planning & achievement: Mission Karmayogi aims to align learning and capacity building with organisational goals and career goals of individual officials and performance measurement.
  • Establishment of unbiased systems of evaluation: Under Mission Karmayogi, there will be objective, fair and independent assessments to determine performance.
  • Democratising and enabling continuous, lifelong learning opportunities.
  • Move beyond silos in the Government
• Integrated Government Online Training (iGOT) Karmayogi Platform: Act as a launchpad for Mission Karmayogi.
  • It is a comprehensive online portal to guide government officials in their capacity building journey.
  • Performance of all users of iGOT-Karmayogi platform is monitored and evaluated on key performance indicators including individual learner, supervisor, content provider and creator etc.

Significance of NPCSCB - Mission Karmayogi

• Professional Growth: Evolving roles of civil servants offer opportunities for officers to continuously build and strengthen their behavioural, functional and domain competencies enhancing professional growth.
• Uniform Training Approach: It harmonises training standard nationwide, promoting a uniform approach in managing and regulating capacity-building through collaboration and shared resources.
• Reducing Training Cost: Encourage Central Ministries and departments to prioritize online courses, invest resources in co-creating and sharing learning processes, and reduce spending on foreign training.
• ⁠Inspiring to-be Civil Servants: The values and ideals propagated by Mission Karamyogi would inspire ethical conduct in aspiring Civil Servants as well. This could help check the rising cases of dishonesty in Civil Services examination (refer to Article 9.2 of the magazine for detailed analysis on frauds in Civil Services Examination).
• Ease of Doing Business: Creating policies and delivering services conducive to economic growth.
• Citizen-centric: The shift from traditional rule-based governance to a more dynamic, role-based approach will to address challenges like working in silos, foster teamwork, and enhance service delivery.

Concerns associated with NPCSCB - Mission Karmayogi

• Scalability: Given the vast number of government officials (1.5 crore) across different levels, effectively scaling training and capacity-building initiatives could be difficult.
• Over-centralization: It emphasis on training and learning through a centralized institutional framework may lead to resistance from states, affecting implementation and desired outcomes.
• Resistance: Indian bureaucracy is alleged to be status-quoist, reluctant to change and thus, a reform at this scale may face several resistances within the bureaucracy.
• Relevance to Job Functions: Designing training modules for civil servants, tailored to address the specific issues, needs, and demands of citizens poses a challenge. 

• For example, the issues faced by civil servants in Himalayan states differ significantly from those in desert areas.

Conclusion

Mission Karmayogi is a bold initiative of Government of India to democratize the training process and address the issues in existing system, such as complexity and red-tapism, silo culture etc. Further, constant evolving training programs to match needs to civil servants, cooperation with states etc. can reform civil services and empower them to deliver services effectively and efficiently.