Village heads to get training in management and planning in Punjab - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Under an ambitious Government programme proposed for rural empowerment, about 40,000 Panchayat or, village council heads in Punjab will be given training in management and resource planning to hone their administrative skills. Panchayats play a pivotal role be it development of rural infrastructure, promotion of agriculture or settling disputes between individuals and villages. A village head leads the Panchayat, a village body of elected representatives. The Panchayat's role is significant in village's social, cultural and economic life, as it acts as a conduit between the local government and the people. Now, there are plans to hone the administrative skills of village heads. "Number one is the micro planning of the village resources. Number two they have to learn the general management techniques which means bunching of the activity and listing and calenderisation and networking of the resources and monitoring and third is the behavioral skills, are very important. Now the Panchayats are torn into various political groups so the successful functionary, who is able to forget the rivalries and forge an alliance at the village level, so these are three things, which we are going to emphasise," said B. K. Srivastava, Director General, Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration (MGSIPA), Chandigarh. Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration, Punjab will organise and implement the training programme, to be taken up in batches of 100 participants each. It would be spread over three to four months in select districts. The Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) training programme would be the first-time exposure of the panches and sarpanches to modern management tools and practices like conflict resolution, stress management, leadership, communication skills, time management, decision making and resource planning. There would be special sessions on mannerisms, attitude, motivational levels and self-esteem. "We will benefit a lot from it. We will know which work has to be done from which office and how we have to do it. Which officer is assigned for which work; so the options will increase. Our village will progress," said Rakesh Sharma, village head, Khuda Lahora. By imparting training to Panchayat heads, the aim is to make local governance more active and responsive so that social awareness and consciousness is created at the grassroot level.