Hyderabad: Civil servants exhorted to make India 'Atma Nirbhar'

Hyderabad: A Special Foundation Course was inaugurated for all India services and central civil services officers who play a vital role in nation-building.

Dr Sanjeev Chopra, Director, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussorie, launched the special foundation course being conducted by Dr MCR HRD Institute here. While administering the oath of allegiance to the Constitution of India to the officer trainees, he paid rich tributes to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the first Home Minister of India, who referred to civil servants as the 'steel frame of India' and called upon them to contribute their best efforts to making an India that is AtmaNirbhar.

"While political leadership will set the broad contours, the civil servants have a substantial role to play in delivering good governance and thereby bringing about qualitative change in the lives of all sections of people, especially their weaker counterparts," Dr Sanjeev stated and added that civil servants should develop professional approach, devoid of any leanings, in dealing with different stakeholders, including the political leadership.

Dr Sanjeev called upon the trainee civil servants to use emerging technologies to understand the problems of people in their true and total frame of reference and find enduring solution to them. "Officers belonging to different Services should not work in their watertight compartments. The need of the hour, therefore, is greater inter-Services collaboration in order to achieve the cherished goals good governance", he added.

Syed Akbaruddin, former India's Permanent Representative at the United Nations, who was the guest of honour, said that the environment in which the civil servants work has been undergoing mind-boggling changes. Considering this, he called upon them to make a deliberate attempt to anticipate change in advance and make a systematic effort to respond to it in a professional, rather than random, fashion.

"Out of the box and innovative thinking is the best approach to manage change effectively in the present-day world of work," he observed. Harpreet Singh, DG of the Institute, said that while civil servants were the best and the brightest as individuals, the transformed scenario requires them to be better team players and transformational leaders.