ATAL MISSION FOR REJUVENATION AND URBAN TRANSFORMATION

Individual Capacity Building

Several reports and studies, have recommended capacity building of both municipal functionaries and municipal institutions. Accordingly, the realigned Capacity Building Plan consists of two strategic interventions - Individual Capacity Building and Institutional Capacity Building. The purpose of individual training is to enhance the functional knowledge, improve the job related skills and change the attitude of municipal functionaries. The one-year training will be imparted to municipal functionaries in training institutes (classroom) followed by its application at their work place. Additionally, they will be mentored and provided coaching services at their work place during the one-year training period. The aim of Institutional Capacity Building is to improve institutional outcomes, as set out in the AMRUT Reform Agenda.

Plan of Action (PoA)

Individual Capacity Building: Based on the Training Needs Analysis (TNA) the focus will be on the following four departments in ULBs.

• Finance & Revenue: Financial Planning and Management, Revenue Mobilization.
• Engineering and Public Health: Water and Sanitation, Drainage and Solid Waste Management.
• Town Planning: Urban Planning including pro-poor planning approaches.
• Administration: e-Governance, Computer and Soft Skills.

The ULBs will plan to train at least 30 functionaries from the four departments every year and all elected representatives. The elected representatives will be imparted training once at the training institutes, which will include a site-visit to learn from best practices in India. As regards municipal functionaries, 45,000 officials from 500 urban local bodies will be trained upto June 2018. The training will consist of three capsules spread over a year. Each capsule will consist of three days training in the training institute followed by four months during which the training will be applied in their work by the municipal functionaries. During a period of one year, therefore, a municipal functionary will be imparted training for nine (9) days in the training institute.

There are several retired officers from the Central, State and Municipal services who are settled in the ULBs. During the four months when the trainees return to their work place, such retired officers can work as mentors. For this the training agencies will match mentors with the municipal functionaries. Finally, the year-long training will also contain one visit to an initiative in India identified as a best practice and one participation in an International/National workshop. The payments for all these activities will be made according to the norms given in the CCBP toolkit (pgs. 18&19). The likely cost will be nearly Rs. 100 crore for three years.

The training will be conducted by empanelled training agencies, academic institutes and other not-for-profit organizations (henceforth called entities). They will be allocated ULBs located within States/regions/areas. Payments to entities will be made after completion of each capsule by the ULBs, subject to training having met its objectives as independently assessed by the NIUA (or its nominee). If gaps are identified by the NIUA, the training entity will have to conduct a re-training at its cost.

The NIUA will be the strategic partner of the MoHUA in capacity building and will provide single window services to the MoHUA/States/ULBs. The NIUA will be involved in disseminating information on training modules, documenting best practices, monitoring the progress of training, and, most important, evaluating the benefits of training after completion of each training capsule of four months. This evaluation will be done for all the individual municipal functionaries over the one-year long training period and results will be shared with the training entities to make them review their training methods and modules, if necessary, to make the training more appropriate and relevant for the municipal functionaries.

For example, functionaries will self-assess the training in the standard formats prescribed after completion of the three-day training program by the training entities in the classroom. Again after their return from the work place after four months the functionaries will self-assess. Now, additionally, their supervisors will also assess the improvement in skills, attitudes and knowledge of the trainees. The self-assessment and supervisor assessment will inform the NIUA and the training entity about the,

• Impact of the training on the knowledge, skills and attitudes of individual functionaries over their existing levels (baseline), and
• Improvements in tasks-related performance.

Importantly, the learnings gained from such a realtime evaluation will be used by the NIUA to disseminate lessons and design future activities for ULBs/States. The NIUA will examine and approve, in consultation with National Mission Director, the roll-out of all other components of the CCBP (e.g. workshops, seminars, visits, etc). The NIUA will also prepare an Annual Capacity Building Report in order to make mid-course correction in the Capacity Building Plan. For this purpose adequate technical and human resources will be provided to NIUA from the Mission funds. The funding for the individual capacity building will be from the State A&OE/CBUD Funds.
 

Institutional Capacity Building

The focus will be on building the institutional capacity of ULBs by using Consulting Firms and other entities.