First Independent Review Mission for Backward Regions Grant Fund State Report
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- 4.2 Structure available to deliver on the capacity development mandate
- 4.3 Status of the trainings delivered so far
4. Capacity Development Issues9Capacity DevelopmentOne of the stated objectives of BRGF as per the guidelines is also to strengthen the Panchayat and Municipality level governance with more appropriate capacity building, to facilitate participatory planning, decision making implementation and monitoring, to reflect local felt needs. The RT found that a clear strategy for spearheading work on the Capacity Development component of BRGF was missing. One of the primary reasons for a lack of clear direction was found to be the weak institutional capacity of the State Institute of Rural Development (SIRD) in terms of absence of a visionary leadership and faculty with required competencies. The focus so far has only been on delivering those trainings, whose pedagogy has remained since the past one decade. No training needs assessment or a situation assessment was undertaken before beginning work on this component. It was found that the SIRD role has been largely limited to identifying NGOs for delivering trainings, acting as a hub for parking funds and delivering them to the districts. No significant value was seen to be added by the SIRD in the entire process of capacity building. The framework calls for provision of telephone connectivity to all panchayats by exploring this arrangement with DoT. No such partnership was sought by the state government and the entire cost of setting up telephone connectivity in panchayats was done using the BRGF funds. Since no consultative process was adopted in districts before setting up these WLL phone in panchayats, it was found that more than 40 percent of them had been disconnected in Seoni as a result of non-payment or otherwise. It remains a concern to see how the upfront funds transferred to the PRIs as part of annual allocations are accounted for if these are not utilized for the purpose. 4.2 Structure available to deliver on the capacity development mandateThe structure available for delivering on the National capacity Building Framework (NCBF) and the Capacity Development mandate of BRGF is weak given the ambitious goals set. At the apex is the State Institute of Rural Development (SIRD) with its Regional Rural Development Training Centres (RRDTC) or the Extension Training Centres (ETC) located in each Revenue Division, Panchayat Training Centres (PTC) at 3 locations in the state and the new Block Resource Centres which are proposed to be a hub for capacity development, planning and analysis. There was found to be an overlap in the functioning of these four tiers of training resource centers though on paper they have a clearly demarcated (and mutually exclusive) scope of work. Interactions with faculty members at both the SIRD and the ETC Seoni brought out the urgent need for their intensive capacity development to be able to fulfill their mandate. Role of the BRC in this new setup becomes interesting. The state has given the following mandate: Compilation of Database - to collect and compile data regarding all schemes being implemented under Janpad Panchayat in the block. This will include management of database on information related to assets of the JP, human and natural resources, information on BPL families and GP-level information on drinking water, primary schools, health centers and anganwadi centres. Provide training - to all PRI functionaries in the block on flagship programmes: BRGF, NREGS, SGSY, MDM (midday meal), TSC etc. Manage and operate a helpline - for citizens to address their problems and to give them information regarding various schemes. If and when this helpline starts running successfully the government will consider converting this helpline into a full-fledged information centre, with citizens getting detailed information for which a token fee will be taken. The centre will also capture and document success stories of beneficiaries of these flagship programmes for sharing with the larger community. Since this role overlaps with that of both the ETC and the PTC, it will be interesting to see whether BRC will be able to carve out a domain for itself or not. It will be interesting to see whether BRC presence closer to the community will help in making Capacity Development need-based and demand driven (and hence looking beyond trainings at skills transfer) or whether it will be ‘business as usual’. Though the state has planned to place huge human resources at the BRC - 11 staff, its current mandate seems to suggest that it will be business as usual. Looking at the staff strength proposed for the BRC it seems that it will be bigger even that the ETC which only has 6 staff (a Director, 3 faculties and 2 administrative staff). One of the concerns which emerge from the new proposed structure is how relevant will the ETCs remain in future and whether they will become redundant once the BRC becomes operational. Though the state government was of the opinion that training needs were so huge that each institution will have their hands full; whether this will happen will be interesting to see in future. Of these staff salaries of 7 are planned to be paid from the BRGF funds and the issue of sustainability of these centers is so far unaddressed. The government directives suggest that 10 percent of training funds and 1 percent of Moolbhoot funds received by the block will be retained by the BRC to manage its center. This, however, will not be enough to sustain the BRCs. GoMP admitted that the issue of sustainability of these BRCs was still to be properly addressed. 4.3 Status of the trainings delivered so farThe RT found that the 3 orientation courses spread over 9 days as prescribed under the NCBF has been crashed into one Integrated Course for the PRI representatives. This course mainly talked about the 73rd and 74th amendment and such historical legislations rather than transferring to the PRI representatives some hands on tools for ensuring better envisioning, planning or calculating their resource envelop for effective planning. In Balaghat district the learning material for Panch and Sarpanch consisted of a 48 page module which was ‘delivered’ in 3 days. The SIRD empanelled NGO shared the draft material with the SIRD which approved it and the trainings were delivered. In the field when the trained representatives (panch and sarpanch) were asked to recall what they learnt from those trainings none of them could recall anything other than the fact that it a 3 training was organized in which they went. The training records shown by one of the NGO in Balaghat District clearly showed cases of much lower attendance than planned. The post training follow-up only consisted of a routine feedback form and any outcome evaluation of those trainings had not been done in any of the BRGF districts visited. Also no instance of delivering capacities in response to local needs was found in the visited districts. Madhya Pradesh conducted 2 elections in the past 6 months (State elections in November 2008 and General Elections in April 2009). It will conduct the PRI elections of the PRI and ULBs in the next 4 months. The SIRD cited the Electoral Code of Conduct as the reason for the slow progress of its work in the last financial year and shared that it had tactically gone slow on the trainings this year since they are awaiting the arrival of new PRI representatives. From a managerial perspective, this time should have been used for consolidating the learning’s of past deliveries, revisiting the pedagogy and developing a strategy for the next 3 years has been, which has however not been done. Directory: rti rti -> Last updated on 26 2014 Manual-1 Particulars of organization, functions and duties [Section 4(1)(b)(i)] rti -> Calendar of activities; Academic; Co-scholastic and Games & Sports calender of activities for session 2015-16 rti -> Rti’s Integration Designer® apex programming Software is Now Available rti -> Template for the information handbook under right to information act rti -> Intercom Telephone Directory of iasri room office /epabx resi Download 0.5 Mb. Share with your friends:
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