BHUBANESWAR: As elected representatives of panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) are now directly involved in the planning process and majority of them are ignorant about their role and responsibility, the Government has taken up a massive training programme to enhance their capacity.
The Panchayati Raj Department has chalked out a capacity building programme for the elected PRI members. More than one lakh PRI representatives will be provided training in respective block and district headquarters with active cooperation from NGOs.
The State Institute of Rural Development (SIRD) has developed five training modules in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). A three-day training will be provided on each module and the 15 days training programme will be completed in phases in view of the huge manpower required, said Panchayati Raj Secretary SN Tripathy.
In the first phase, the PRI representatives will be educated on role and rule clarity and their responsibilities. The other training modules are rural development programme in Panchayati Raj department, social welfare in other line departments, transparency and accountability and financial management and accountability.
Training for the 314 panchayat samiti chairmen has started in the SIRD campus here on the first module and the programme will be completed by September 15. Zilla parishad presidents and state-level officials of the department would be part of the next batch trainees.
While UNDP has identified 82 NGO partners for the district level training programme, SIRD has selected 374 district-level trainers (DLTs) and 87 state-level trainers (SLTs) for the capacity building programme. The DLTs and SLTs will be providing training to 854 zilla parishad members, 6227 panchayat samiti members, 6234 sarpanches and 87,000 ward members.
The district level programme will start from October and would provide training to about 40,000 elected representatives by March 2010 while the remaining 60,000 will be trained by October 2010, State level coordinator of the training programme Saroj Dash said.
The expenditure on the training programme will be met out of the Backward Region Grants Fund (BRGF) and it has been estimated to cost Rs 48 crore, he said.
The objective of the training programme is to create awareness among the elected representatives about their role and responsibility for the people.
After devolution of power to PRIs, the Planning Commission has made it mandatory for district-level planning involving all the elected representatives to make the planning process broad based.