An Indian delegation from the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Government of India, led by Secretary DARPG and Director General, National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG), Mr. V. Srinivas, paid a three-day visit to Sri Lanka from 7-9 July 2024.
Mr. N. B. S. Rajput, Joint Secretary DARPG, Ms. Presca Mathew, Chief Administrative Officer NCGG, Dr. Ashutosh Pal Singh, Associate Professor NCGG and Dr. Mukesh Bhandari, Research Associate NCGG were also part of the delegation.
The visit mainly focused on developing an operational framework for the bilateral collaboration on capacity building of Sri Lanka civil service officers in India and potential avenues for replicating the Good Governance practices of India in Sri Lanka.
The delegation called on Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Dinesh Gunawardena and State Minister of Home Affairs Ashoka Priyantha, and also held detailed meetings with Secretary to the President of Sri Lakna, Mr. E M S B Ekanayake and Secretary to the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Mr. Anura Dissanayake. The delegation also met Secretary, Ministry of Public Administration, Home Affairs, Provincial Councils and Local Government, Mr. Pradeep Yasarathna.
The delegation visited the Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration (SLIDA), where they interacted with the faculty and management of the Institute led by Mr. Nalaka Kaluwewe, Director General, and also received positive feedback from Sri Lanka administrative officers alumni of past training programs at NCGG. Secretary DARPG delivered a special address at SLIDA on ‘Centralized Public Grievance Redressal System: A Foundation for SMART Government’ that was attended by senior officers of Government of Sri Lanka and officers, faculty and management of SLIDA.
The delegation also visited the Colombo District Secretariat and interacted with District Secretary Mr. Ginige Prasanna Janaka Kumara and other senior officials to gain insights into the mechanisms and models for services provided by respective departments of the Secretariat, such as data collection and registration, social services, disaster relief, MSME empowerment, integrated boarder management, among others.
The three-day visit by the Indian delegation followed up on a visit to India in February 2024 by a high-level Sri Lankan delegation led by Secretary to the Prime Minister, Mr Dissanayake, to explore further strengthening of the bilateral cooperation on capacity building of Sri Lanka civil service officers in India.
To date, around 100 Sri Lankan civil service officers have undergone training as part of three short-term capacity-building programs at NCGG for senior and mid-level officers from the country. The detailed interactions during the visit to Sri Lanka by the Indian delegation served to fine-tune and structure proposed long-term capacity-building initiatives for Sri Lankan officers in India. In this regard, the delegation took note of avenues and sectors of specific interest to the Sri Lankan side, including centralized public grievance redressal mechanism, administrative reforms, personnel administration, pension reforms, e-office, procurement reforms, land administration, etc.
Meanwhile, another batch of Sri Lankan senior civil services officers is set to participate in a capacity-building program at India’s NCGG organized under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC) of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.
A group of Sri Lankan senior civil services officers will depart for India on July 22, becoming the third batch to be sent thus far. In 2023-2024, 352 participants from Sri Lanka attended ITEC and e-ITEC programs in the areas of Health, Ayurveda, Good Governance, Petroleum and Hydrocarbon, Power, Renewable & Alternate Energy, Urban Planning, Rural Development, IT and Cyber Security, Banking and Management, Education, SME and Entrepreneurship, Sustainable Development and South-South Cooperation, Engineering & Technology, Management & Leadership etc.
The Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme was instituted in 1964 as a bilateral programme of assistance of the Government of India and is one of the oldest institutionalized arrangements for international capacity building having trained more than 200,000 officials from 160+ countries in both the civilian and in the defence sector.
Building on India’s vast and rich network of governance- and development-related expertise available in higher educational institutions and training facilities, ITEC offers nearly 10,000 fully-funded in-person training opportunities through nearly 400 courses offered at 100+ eminent institutes in India each year.
Sri Lanka is among the most important ITEC partner countries and 402 fully-funded slots are offered every year to Sri Lankan Government personnel/nationals for short-term training programs towards enhancing their skill-set. (Newswire)
