Skilling the top rung

Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) Secretary Sanjay Kothari wants to improve the skills of the top civil servants so DoPT has constituted a board of National Facilitators who will run different training programmes for officers. The facilitators on board are former Coal Secretary SK Shrivastava, former Agriculture Secretary Anup Kumar Thakur, National Shipping Board Chairman Vishwapati Trivedi and former retired Urban Development Secretaries Sudhir Krishna and Upendra Nath Bora. This high-powered group has planned “high quality” training modules in association with the United Nations Development Programme. The programme will start with the screening of Sydney Lumet’s 1957 classic, 12 Angry Men, to sharpen the leadership skills of top bureaucrats, emphasising ethics and values through this film. It offers lessons on building consensus among persons with different personalities from different backgrounds. The focus will be on bureaucrats “comprehending the power of influence in the functioning of leadership, relating to the traits and behaviours associated with leadership and dealing with multiple stakeholders in a complex and multicultural environment”. The UNDP has prepared the two-day module on leadership at the request of the DoPT. “The entire programme will have the following ethos interspersing all sessions — accountability, creativity/possibility thinking, going within, positivity, positive vision and inspiring goals, actions: What is mine to do?” as per the course module. Leading a stress-free as well as a “wholesome life in all dimensions” will also be a part of the ‘Ethics and Values’ module. The film 12 Angry Men (in 1986, Indian director Basu Chatterjee remade it as Ek Ruka Hua Faisla) is the story of how 12 jurors are asked to reach a unanimous decision on whether a person is guilty or not, with the accused set to receive a death sentence if the jury finds him guilty. The film shows how a lone juror who had doubts about the evidence manages to win over his 11 colleagues. g

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Under Modi’s watch

Two important resource-rich public sector undertakings are on the radar of the government–the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) and the Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons (DGH). The NMDC is idle without a permanent chairman, though Gopal Singh was selected by the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) in July 2015 but there was no initiative from the Prime Minister’s Office to clear his name. At the same time, there were also rumours about the clandestine manner in which he was selected. Sources disclosed that the PMO’s silence is possibly because it was aware about the modus operandi of the then PESB chairman. It is now learnt that the Ministry of Steel has scrapped the selection panel and a search committee has been constituted to select a new and competent candidate. Meanwhile in the DGH, the post of DG was vacant for a long time. Finally, Atanu Chakraborty, a 1985-batch IAS officer of the Gujarat cadre, has been appointed. He is at present working as Managing Director of the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Ltd. Chakraborty has served in the districts of Vadodara, Sabarkantha and was Collector of Amreli district. In Gandhinagar, he has served in the Finance, Home, Tribal Development and Labour Departments. He has also worked as Principal Secretary (Economic Affairs), Finance Department, Gujarat. Modi is clearly selecting the heads of PSUs very carefully. g
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Now for some real news

Supriya Sahu, IAS, has been recommended by the Prasar Bharati Board as the next DG Doordarshan. She will take charge after approval from the ACC. But in the meantime, there seems to be a lot of talk over her selection for the coveted job in the nearly dead organisation. A large chunk of professionals refuse to accept her credentials as fit to lead a huge force of techno-programme cadre. The Chairman of the Board too was heard to be fuming over the coup. He even had a showdown with the CEO. Sources reveal that to bring Doordarshan back on rails, he was set to promote a professional culture by inducting internal candidates. It is also learnt that he had sounded both the Ministers, who gave a nod to his scheme of things. In such a situation, the unexpected somersault in the guise of Sahu’s appointment has raised many an eyebrow. The haste to push the case of the lady officer as the lone candidate is also being frowned upon. Is a group of bureaucrats apprehending inconvenient times ahead, behind this move? Are these bureaucrats trying to hide something that is already known to others!g

The cost factor

Transport Ministry officials are said to be in a tizzy about what the surface of roads in India should be like. This situation has come about because the construction business is in recessionary mode. The cement industry, particularly, is facing a crunch because of low demand. So, members of the Manufacturers of Cement Association (MCA) met the Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping, Nitin Gadkari, and requested him to use a cement component in laying highways. Gadkari patiently listened to them and then suggested they should meet National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) Chairman Raghav Chandra. Currently, we learn, NHAI officials are conducting a cost-benefit analysis. But everyone knows there are two methods to construct a road: One, flexible pavement, which consists of various layers of granular material with a layer of bituminous materials on top. The other is rigid pavement, which consists of cement concrete pavements laid on a well-prepared granular sub-base. With the international prices of bituminous materials slumping by 25 per cent in February, the rigid pavement method is obviously more costly. In addition, rigid pavements exert more wear and tear impact on vehicles. In these circumstances, NHAI officials are keeping a discrete silence as they don’t know what the Ministry would like. MCA leaders are, meanwhile, knocking on the doors of NHAI, but there appears to be no light on the road. g