Date: 06/10/2022

Relevance: GS-2: Government Policies and Interventions for Development in various sectors and Issues arising out of their Design and Implementation.

Key Phrases: Mission Karmayogi, better-informed citizenry, reform Indian bureaucracy, prepare civil servants for the future, Capacity Building Commission (CBC), National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB)

Why in News?

• The civil services have remained at the epicenter of all government activities in India, both as agents of policymaking as well as the executive hand that delivers and implements those policies.
• This unique moment of Amrit Mahotsav is the appropriate time for the civil services to pause, reflect and strategize on the approaches needed to shape its future.
• People-centric governance is no longer aspirational but is rapidly becoming the national imperative.

Forces shaping People-centric governance:

• Interconnectedness through ICT:
  • With the rise of information and communication technology, we are becoming more interconnected globally.
  • Young Indians living in small towns and villages are connected to the wider world, which is shaping their aspirations and desires.
  • India’s citizens are no longer content to passively receive benefits from a patronizing government; they are actively making claims on the state and feel empowered to shape how it affects their lives.
• Public participation:
  • The better-informed citizenry is giving shape to a more mature political system, in which politicians from across the spectrum recognize the importance of delivering on campaign promises of better health, education, and social benefits.
  • These two forces have led to a sharper focus on citizen-centricity, engagement, and partnership, which the Prime Minister has aptly called Jan Bhagidari.
• Use of new technology:
  • The development of new technologies is opening up possibilities for governance.
  • The state needs to leverage them to deliver the greatest good for the largest number.

Partnership State:

• These forces herald a new phase in the evolution of the Indian state — from being a provider and a provisioner state to becoming a “partnership state”.
• Our response to the Covid-19 pandemic exemplified many aspects of this new “partnership state”.
• It was seen that different arms of the national government rise to the occasion, from the PMO to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and many other ministries, the NITI Aayog, ICMR, and other central government organizations.
• These arms collaborated effectively with international bodies and state governments, bringing out the strength of India’s global relations and federal structure.
• Private partnership:
  • The private sector, civil society, and citizen volunteer groups all joined the effort against the virus.
  • Civil society organizations and citizen volunteer groups played a major role in providing relief to those hit by the economic effects of the lockdowns, spreading awareness about the virus, and in engaging in surveillance and related activities.
  • All these parts of society came together as one “Team India” to fight the pandemic. This is the true spirit of the “partnership state”.

Need for Mission Karmayogi:

• Operating in a dynamic ecosystem requires a new mindset and an evolving skill set.
• It needs skills of collaboration, adaptiveness, credit sharing, persuasion, and conflict resolution along with a nuanced and practical understanding of disruptive innovations, digital arenas, big data management, and emerging technologies. This is the fertile ground from which the seeds of Mission Karmayogi emerged.
• Mission Karmayogi, the National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB), encapsulates three transitions:
  • The first transition is a change in the mindset of government officials from considering themselves karmacharis to becoming karmayogis.
  • The second transition is a change in the workplace, from assigning individual responsibility for performance to diagnosing the constraints to a civil servant’s performance and remediating them.
  • The third transition is moving the public HR management system and the corresponding capacity-building apparatus from rule-based to role-based.

Institutional framework:

• The institutional framework includes four institutions:
  • The Prime Minister’s Human Resource Council,
  • The Cabinet Secretariat coordination unit,
  • The Capacity Building Commission (CBC), and
  • The SPV Karmayogi Bharat.

Capacity Building Commission:

• The CBC’s central purpose is to build credibility and shape a uniform approach to capacity building on a collaborative basis.
• As the custodian of the overall landscape, the CBC will determine the roll-out strategy of the NPCSCB, onboarding different ministries and departments, conduct the HR audit of government organizations, ensure functional oversight over all central training institutions and Karmayogi Bharat, conduct the Global HR Summit and provide policy inputs to Department of Personnel & Training.

Way forward:

• A post-Covid BANI (brittle, anxious, non-linear, and incomprehensible) world is redefining the understanding of the future of work.
• The understanding of what a public good is also evolving along with the aspirations of citizens.
• India is moving towards a “less government, more governance” approach.
• This requires a paradigmatic shift in the capacities, mindset, and actions of the civil servant.
• Technology is redefining how goods and services can be rendered. From Aadhaar to DBT and Digilocker, from CPGRAMS to MyGov, from faceless transactions to drone deliveries, from online learning to a digital university, India is rapidly integrating technology in both governance and in delivering goods and services.
• The structure and setup of the workplace are rapidly altering and “work from anywhere to deliver good governance” to all citizens will soon become the norm.
• All this requires a worker (civil servant) who is not just committed but also has the competence to deliver on this evolving mandate.

Source: Indian Express

Mains Question:

Q. What are the objectives of Mission Karmayogi and how will it help reform the Indian bureaucracy and prepare civil servants for the future? Discuss.