Workshop on capacity building for civic body staff held

Rourkela: Even as the government is emphasizing urban governance, Centre for Environment and Development (CED), Eastern Regional Centre, Cuttack, organized a two-day workshop on capacity building for councilors and staff of Rourkela Municipality (RM) at Pantha Nivas here today.

CED in collaboration with state’s Housing and Urban Development Department, and Union Ministry of Urban Development has taken up comprehensive capacity development programme for the elected representatives, senior officers, and implementing officers of municipal corporations and municipalities in Class-I cities of Odisha and other states.

Similar programmes in Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Kerela by CED are at different stages of progress. Besides training, members of CED also included few innovative modules such as urban governance and management, urban reforms framework, JNNURM, resource mobilization/budgeting/finance management, gender equity and role of women in urban governance, protection of urban heritage and geo-informatics in the capacity building programme.

While imparting training to all the councilors and officers of the RM participated in the programme on the topic ‘Project Management and Personal development’, Dr. Haribandhu Panda, Director, Academic, CED, said that workshop was aimed at creating awareness on the required mandatory reforms in urban cities for availing support under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

Stating that JNNURM, a flagship programme of the Central government, is aimed to developing urban infrastructure and living condition in the country, he said that it is prerequisite to establish double entry accounting system, have service-level benchmarking of urban services such as water supply, sanitation, solid waste management, sewerage, city transportation and city development plan (CDP) for availing financial support under JNNURM.

He said that to start a project, a councilor can write a letter to principal secretary of Housing and Urban Development Department through executive officer of the civic body by submitting detailed project report so as to receive funds for approval of the projects from the Centre under JNNURM.

He felt regrettable saying many projects in Odisha get stopped before getting its final output. This is due to vested interest of individuals. Therefore, projects are like a set of activities or blueprint which should be of non-repeated routine in nature and should be completed in one time at a place with time-bound manner. For every project to implement, it requires balance in three parameters such as cost, time and quality. But every time cost and time over runs in a project with decreasing its quality and in turn getting worst in getting final products/output, he added.

It is to be noted that CED is the Centre of Excellence on Solid Waste and Wastewater Management of Ministry of Urban Development and Regional Resource Agency of Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India and also the accredited agency of Government of Kerela for Solid Waste Management and Participatory Resource Mapping.

The programme was chaired by Smt. Rashmibala Mishra, chairperson, RM with guests of honour Rajendra Narayan Mishra, vice-chairman, RM and Bijay Kumar Swain, executive officer, RM. Resource persons included Dr. Smita Mishra Panda, Programme Director, Gender Development, Livelihood and Culture, CED and Prof. Kamalesh Mishra of HDF School of Management.