Mission Karmayogi -National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB)

GOVERNANCE / POLITY

Topic: General Studies 2:

• Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive 
• Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications 

Mission Karmayogi -National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB)

Context: Dubbed as the biggest bureaucratic reform initiative, the Union Cabinet approved ‘Mission Karmayogi’, a new capacity-building scheme for civil servants aimed at upgrading the post-recruitment training mechanism of the officers and employees at all levels.

Civil Service reform measures undertaken by government in recent past

• Hiring reforms by bringing a nodal recruiting agency(NRA)
• Lateral entry in joint secretary level positions
• Provision of non IAS officers in policy making roles
• Training of government servants through a program called ‘arambh’
• Short term posting of young IAS officers at different central departments on a probation before their posting in districts

What are the existing impediments in Civil Service?

• Diverse and fragmented training landscape
• Evolution of silos at Department level preventing shared understanding of India’s development aspirations
• Difficulty in finding officials with the right competencies for a task
• Lack of linkages between the Role and Competency
• Inconsistencies in training priorities, competency & pedagogy
• Lack of common platform and barriers to exchange of knowledge
• Lack of lifelong & continuous learning environment
• Redundancy & duplication of efforts

What are the core guiding principles or the Policy Framework of NPCSCB Programme?

1. To complement the physical capacity building approach with Online Learning
2. Supporting Transition from ‘Rules based’ to ‘Roles based’ HR Management. Aligning work allocation of civil servants by matching their competencies to the requirements of the post.
3. To create an ecosystem of shared training infrastructure including that of learning materials, institutions and personnel.
4. To calibrate all Civil Service positions to a Framework of Roles, Activities and Competencies (FRACs) approach and to create and deliver learning content relevant to the identified FRACs in every Government entity.
5. Enable adoption of modern technological tools such as digital platforms, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Analytics

What is the Institutional Structure for Mission Karmayogi?

1. PM led Human Resource Council

• • It will also include state Chief Ministers, Union Cabinet ministers and eminent national and global Academicians, thought leaders, Industry leaders
  • This council will approve and review civil service capacity building programmes.
  • Mandate of the Council includes:
  • Apex body driving & providing strategic direction to the Programme
  • Approves & Monitors Civil Service Capacity Building plan 
  • Reviews reports submitted by Capacity Building Commission

2. Cabinet Secretary Coordination Unit 

• • It comprises of select secretaries and cadre controlling authorities, headed by Cabinet Secretary
  • The primary function of this body is to monitor progress, and execution of plans. 

3. Capacity Building Commission: It will include experts in related fields and global professionals. The mandate of the commission are: 

• • To prepare annual Capacity building plans and seek approval from PM HR Council
  • Audit human resources available in the government.
  • Harmonize training standards and capacity building
  • Create shared faculty and resources
  • Supervisory role over all Central Training Institutions.
  • Set norms for common mid-career training programs
  • Undertake analysis of data from iGOT-Karmayogi
  • Prepare the Annual HR Report on health of Civil Services and Target Achievements 

4. Wholly owned Special Purpose Vehicle(SPV) 

• • Legal: Company under Section 8 (of Companies Act) with 100% Government ownership
  • Board of Directors: Representing all participating entities of the Programme
  • Revenue Model: Self sustaining – Annual Subscription fee of INR 431 per employee 

Key functions of SPV are:

• Own and operate the online Platform, iGOT Karmayogi on behalf of Government
• Operationalize a robust content ecosystem
• Manage assessment & certification eco-system
• Telemetry data based scoring – monitoring and evaluation
• Feedback assessment – driven by Artificial Intelligence & evolvable and scalable platform
• Curate & deliver programmes for capacity building of Civil Servants in other countries
• The SPV will own all Intellectual Property Rights on behalf of the Government of India.

What is iGOT- Karmayogi platform?

• The Karmyogi Programme will be delivered by setting up an Integrated Government Online Training (iGOT) Karmayogi Platform.
• iGOT-Karmayogi is a continuous online training platform, which would allow all government servants from assistant secretary to secretary level to undergo continuous training, depending on their domain areas.
• Courses from international universities will be made available on the platform for officers to take any time
• The platform is expected to evolve into a vibrant and world-class market place for content where carefully curated and vetted digital e-learning material will be made available. 
• 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

How is Mission Karmayogi funded?

• To cover around 46 lakh central employees, a sum of Rs 510.86 crore will be spent over a period of 5 years from 2020-21 to 2024-25. 
• The expenditure is partly funded by multilateral assistance to the tune of $50 million.

How is the Monitoring & Evaluation Framework of the mission?

• Monitoring and evaluation of all users on the basis of Key Performance Indicators (KPI).
• Users include the individual learner (Civil Servant), the supervisor, the organisation, the peer group, the content creator and the technology service provider
• Prime Minister’s Dash Board: Real-time reporting of Capacity Building KPIs with Annual Score Cards and Rankings for Departments
• Capacity Building Plan- Annual Plans submitted by each Department aligned to National ambitions

• Annual State of Civil Services Report: Consolidated Performance of Civil Services as a whole in a year with focus on achievements & contribution to National Progress

• Independent Audits: Third Party Audit of Programme, in addition to regular Audit and Quality Assurance by Capacity Building Commission

Merits of the Mission

• Democratized Civil Service: This is a New National Architecture for Civil Services Capacity Building that will herald into Silo-less Performance. It would help augment the capacities of over two crore officials in India. 
• Holistic: This is a Comprehensive reform of the capacity building apparatus at individual, institutional and process levels for efficient public service delivery.
• Competency driven HR Management policy: The mission ensures that right person with right competencies is at the right position
• Enhanced Accessibility: The mission enables Civil Servants to learn from the best institutions and practices across the world (through marketplace of iGOT platform)
• Increased Expertise The mission is Knowledge driven and aims at building competencies to transform Civil Servants into leaders and subject matter experts.
• Better Governance: Capacity of Civil Services plays a vital role in performing core governance functions. The mission will help make Civil Servant more efficient, effective, accountable and responsive to the needs of the citizen 
• Leads to better Work Culture: The mission organically links the transformation of work culture and strengthening public institutions through adopting modern technology (iGOT Karmayogi platform) which lays emphasis on skills

• Professional Growth: It helps make available to all civil servants, an opportunity to continuously build and strengthen their Behavioral, Functional and Domain Competencies in their self-driven and mandated learning paths

• Uniform Approach: The mission will enable a uniform approach in managing and regulating the capacity building ecosystem on collaborative and co-sharing basis.

• Reduces the cost of training Civil Servants for both Centre & States, due to emphasis given on continuous online learning and shared ecosystem. Expenditure on foreign training will thence be cut down.

Do You Know?

• iGOT Pilot Model has trained COVID Warriors and led India’s fight against COVID
• Courses were provided for diverse audiences like Doctors, Nurses, NCC Cadets, NSS Volunteers and Technicians
• The pilot model supported 12 languages and the content was delivered through multiple channels (Mobile, Desktop, Offline access by iGOT TV)
• The pilot was a success with nearly 12.7 lakh registered users and 14.06 lakh certificates issues

Conclusion

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.