New Delhi, September 10: Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Thursday said India has shown the world over the past few months that the show can go on smoothly despite the crippling pandemic, an official statement said.

Addressing the 61st foundation day celebration of Mussoorie-based Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), he said it is extremely heartening to learn that the academy is now preparing for the first and the largest combined foundation course in these times. He assured full support for its success. Also Read | Vivo V20 SE Smartphone Officially Teased Online, to Be Launched Soon.

Singh, minister of state for Personnel, said the academy had started conducting combined foundation course for over 20 civil services. Earlier, this course included only the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and a few others, he said. Also Read | Delhi Reports Record Spike in COVID-19 Cases For 2nd Consecutive Day After 4,308 People Test Positive; Tally Reaches 2.05 Lakh.

"For the first time, the academy was conducting a combined foundation course by including over 20 different services from the government sector,” Singh said. He said, in future, an attempt will be made to further enlarge the spectrum of foundation course by including other services too.

"This is in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision to come out of a state of silos and, instead, develop a common perspective and a common vision for all functionaries across the services,” the minister said.

Singh said over the last few months, India has shown to the world that despite the crippling coronavirus crisis, the show goes on as smoothly as during the pre-pandemic times, the statement said. He said that an era spanning six decades is a significant time in the history of an institution and the way the academy has evolved over the years bears ample testimony to the sweat, toil and vision of those who have nurtured it, according to the statement issued by the Personnel Ministry.

The LBSNAA is the premier training institute for civil servants. Extending his felicitations to the entire fraternity of the academy under the leadership of Sanjeev Chopra (LBSNAA Director), an erudite scholar and administrator, Singh congratulated the academy for delivering out-of-box solutions much ahead of deadlines, designing all-inclusive training and pedagogical techniques, embracing state of the art technology, making a social and ecological impact while leaving behind a set of best practices in every domain.

He expressed satisfaction that the academy is continuously training the pioneers to fight future challenges. Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's penchant for governance reforms, Singh recalled his address to civil servants last year at Kevadia in Gujarat, where he had said that “every effort made with impartial and selfless spirit is the strong foundation of New India".

“To fulfil the dream of a new India, 21st-century thinking and dreams are indispensable in our bureaucracy - a bureaucracy that is creative and constructive, imaginative and innovative, proactive and polite, professional and progressive, energetic and enabling, efficient and effective, transparent and tech-enabled,” Modi had said.

The minister also referred to the prime minister's two-day visit to LBSNAA in 2017, where he had extensively interacted with officer trainees of 92nd Foundation Course and given them the mantra of coming out of silos and focussing on the theme of constant learning.

To fulfil this thought, he said, the Union Cabinet recently passed Mission Karmayogi, a national programme for civil services capacity building (NPCSCB) which will go a long way in creating a new future-ready civil service for a new India.

Singh said it is an endeavour to incarnate civil services into a real Karmayogi who is creative, constructive, proactive and technically empowered to face the future challenges. Recently, the Union Cabinet also approved setting up of National Recruitment Agency (NRA) for ease of aspiring candidates, but Mission Karmayogi harps on constant learning after one has joined the services, he added.

Singh said the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) in April this year launched a learning platform (https://igot.gov.in) with an exclusive window for coronawarriors and within 10-15 days of its launch, more than 25 officers registered and got trained on the platform.

Referring to another initiative of monitoring 700 districts for coronavirus management, Singh said young collectors have played a stellar role in this with on-spot decision making. He pointed out that one of the reasons for this high-quality performance was that IAS officers who had served as assistant secretaries in the government of India had gained from their mentorship in the Union government.

Singh also expressed happiness about the academy's initiative to spread the message of "our ancient heritage of ayurveda, yoga and associated culture of living in harmony with nature". The minister released a publication- a compilation of articles on lesser-known heroes of the freedom movement, the statement said. At the end of the programme, employees of the academy were felicitated for their exemplary work, it added.

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