CIVIL SERVICE TRAINING IN INDIA

In recent years training has acquired increasing recognition not only as a strategy for achieving organizational goals but also as an important means of inducing, even sustaining, change. As a result, there is a growing realization among political leadership and administrators that training is also a major tool for effective administration. Indeed, as the pace of all-round change increases, the need for thoughtfully planned and designed training becomes more evident.

Training is relevant for all members of the civil services – from the senior-most secretary to the junior-most clerk and peon. Nowadays, there is also much talk about the need to develop through training and related measures appropriate competencies amongst each individual working in government. Such competencies should be both generic and general which are related to the level and category of the post at which the individual is working, as also domain-specific and related to the specific schemes and programmes with whose formulation and implementation the employee is associated.

Through 25 papers, two appendices and an editors’ introduction, this book comprehensively traces the entire gamut of all issues pertinent to training of civil servants in India. It deserves to be read by all interested in good governance and development in India.

Rakesh Hooja, PhD, is a former IAS officer who served both Government of India and Government of Rajasthan where his final two assignments were Additional Chief Secretary (Training)-cum-Director, HCM Rajasthan Institute of Public Administration, Jaipur and Chairman, Board of Revenue for Rajasthan. He has authored/edited 30 books and innumerable articles, research papers, commentaries, reviews and has also been actively involved in the editing of various journals and magazines. Presently, Dr Hooja is Director, Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi.

K.K. Parnami is Publication Officer at the HCM Rajasthan State Institute of Public Administration, Jaipur. Besides four books, he has contributed several scholarly papers to the national journals, and has also been associated with the editing of Institute’s journals.