India has embarked on the path towards Viksit Bharat by 2047. It’s clear what India aspires to achieve: Becoming a manufacturing hub in the global supply chain, critical exporter of value-added services and mass supplier of human skills to an ageing developed world. But the “how” seems to concern many.
Improved governance and efficient and competent civil services are required for achieving India’s ambitions. Doubts were raised about the capacity of civil servants in helping India achieve its goals. Prime Minister Narendra Modi aimed to change that by launching Mission Karmayogi, that is, the National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building, in order to transform India’s three million civil servants into citizen-centric, future-ready and result-oriented karmayogis. As part of Mission Karmayogi, the Capacity Building Commission (CBC) was constituted in 2021 to provide policy guidance and tools to enhance the capabilities of all levels of India’s vast civil services. Now the question is: Three years into the programme, are our civil services more capable of doing what is needed to achieve the $30 trillion economy by 2047?
In the past, delayed completion of mega infrastructure like rail freight corridors and national highways was the norm. Delayed inter-ministerial permissions threw many infrastructure projects into a quagmire.
The PM Gati Shakti platform integrated all legal and geographic layers, including forests, wildlife sanctuaries, roads and railway lines, as well as planning and execution of mega infrastructure projects. It became the means of achieving the “whole of government” approach mooted by the PM where ministries were required to work in a de-siloed manner to achieve national priorities by harmonising sector-specific perspectives. However, for the portal to function as intended, knowledge and skill sets in emerging technologies and GIS across diverse ministries and field-level public officials, from highways, customs, forests, power, mining, regulatory authorities concerning civil aviation, rail safety, etc., are critical.
The CBC worked closely with the Ministry of Commerce and civil services training institutions like Gati Shakti Vishwavidyalaya and National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes and Narcotics to curate digital training courses to equip civil servants with skills to apply PM Gati Shakti for project planning and coordination across departments. Over 24,000 officials from railways, forests, customs, highways, telecom have completed PM Gati Shakti learning modules. Similarly, the CBC curated an online learning module on emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Big Data analysis which was uploaded on the online learning portal, iGOT Karmayogi Bharat. Over 3,88,000 government personnel from across ministries have successfully been certified in learning modules on emerging technologies. The CBC worked closely with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, IIT Mumbai, Indian Academy of Highway Engineers, and the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute to curate courses on emerging high-tech road-construction technologies and resolving geohazards like landslides in high-altitude road construction.
The impact of PM Gati Shakti in speeding up infrastructure has been immense. The construction of new rail lines has increased from 4 km per day to 12 km per day by 2024. More than 15 highway projects under Bharatmala-2 were prepared under PM Gati Shakti. Moreover, new rail and highway alignments have been done by avoiding sensitive wildlife habitats thanks to integrated planning.
PM Modi announced from the Red Fort that Mission Karmayogi will promote citizen-centric approaches among civil servants. A key tenet of ease of living has been access to public security. The CBC partnered with the Ministry of Home Affairs to train police personnel from the Union Territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Delhi, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Puducherry on a research-based self-reflection course to promote “sewa bhaav”. Over 50,000 police personnel who interact with citizens at police stations, traffic junctions, and for emergency response underwent a two-day training which modelled common citizen flashpoints and taught them to proactively address problems. For example, one of the flashpoints modelled via field research with the Delhi Police dealt with certain complainants attributing biased behaviour on the part of the personnel towards one party in the dispute. Training protocol advises police personnel to call on a colleague to jointly hear the complaint and allay misgivings and transparently work toward a solution. An independent impact assessment undertaken by Quality Council of India by interviewing citizens visiting police stations before and after the training found, in Puducherry for example, that the percentage of “very satisfied” citizens dealing with police stations increased from 24 per cent to 66 per cent after training. However, the true peace dividend is reflected in the sense of security demonstrated by citizens in Kashmir. Nearly 21 million tourists visited Kashmir in 2023. A police sub inspector in Srinagar, after the police karmayogi training, said that his attitude to policing became very professional. Similarly, the Delhi Police received accolades during the G-20 summit for their soft skills in dealing with visitors.
A similar programme curated by the CBC, Railway Board and Indian Railways Institute of Rail Transport Management (IRITM), Lucknow trained 1,00,000 stations masters, travelling ticket examiners and reservation clerks in proactively solving passenger and freight customer grievances. A total of 1,600 citizens/customers were selected with 100 respondents at each railway division. These respondents were interviewed at defined touch points: Railway platforms, ticket booking counter, inside the train, parcel/goods sheds by a third-party independent group, Research and Development Initiative. They found that citizen satisfaction on service provision and solution response increased by 1.5 to 1.9 times after the training in the Mumbai, Asansol, Bengaluru and Lucknow railway divisions. Over 4 lakh Gramin Dak Sevaks and nearly 1 lakh village-level citizen service centres (CSCs) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) were also trained in enhanced citizen service delivery.
The PM said in Parliament, Viksit Bharat will develop only on the back of a tax system which is painless and rewards the honest taxpayer. The CBC partnered with the Central Board of Direct Taxes to curate an online module on systemic solutions to repeated taxpayer grievances. Over 14,000 direct tax personnel have completed the online learning module.
The role of state governments and municipal corporations is equally important in India’s 2047 targets. Services, infrastructure and public goods like drinking water, sanitation, and roads are delivered by municipal governments. The CBC has piloted capacity building approaches in Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Nagpur, Pune, Bhubaneswar and Mysuru municipal corporations. Almost the entire Ahmedabad municipal corporation staff and those of Nagpur have been onboarded on iGOT Karmayogi Bharat learning portal and are taking courses on municipal finance, road engineering, solid waste management, etc.
Visible impacts of Mission Karmayogi apart, internally, there is also an ongoing invisible churn towards cultivating a culture of life-long learning. Section officers and administration assistants across the country have completed 15 lakh online learning modules on data analytics, Government e Marketplace modules and software tools like advanced excel. The Indian Institute of Public Administration assessed the impact by seeking inputs on recently trained staff from their supervisors and reported increased proficiency in data analytics and e-governance tools.
Mission Karmayogi, flanked by the CBC and Karmayogi Bharat, have made giant leaps in the capacity building of Indian civil services. I believe Mission Karmayogi is slowly allaying the notion postulated by certain political scientists of “state failure” instead of market failure. To further dispel the notion that when the state steps in to address market failure, it sometimes introduces state failures of its own, the 90 departments of the Government of India and its over 2,700 attached agencies must begin to implement their annual capacity building plans facilitated by the CBC on role-specific learning needs.
The writer is member administration, Capacity Building Commission, Government of India
