Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Friday said that exposure to foreign training has some merits, but administrators must focus to find “Indian solutions to Indian problems”.

Speaking at an event here, he said the current challenges also demand a healthy mix of Civil and Military disciplines and more and more integration of courses are required. Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel, also called for “integrated curriculum” while addressing the convocation ceremony of 46th and 47th Advanced Professional Programme on Public Administration (APPPA) at Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA).

He said, the professional training modules of public administration need a relook in the light of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s India@2047 vision. Singh noted with satisfaction that the APPPA course has undergone changes and new areas like Atmanirbhar Bharat and Mission Karmayogi apart from other important government initiatives have been covered, a statement issued by the Personnel Ministry said.

He said, this makes the course more relevant and useful and it has given a good exposure to rural and urban development schemes. It has helped the officers in better understanding and appreciation of various socio-economic schemes, the minister added. Singh said, exposure to foreign training has some merits, but administrators must focus to find Indian solutions to Indian problems.

He also recalled that IIPA has been resilient enough to tide over the precarious pandemic situation and dispense with the conventional mode of face-to-face training, however, there was some blending whenever the circumstances demanded so. The minister said, 47th APPPA, besides the number it carries had much more significance as it became the first batch ever in the history of IIPA to be an audience to the oration of special address by the in-service chiefs of all three wings i.e., Army, Navy and Air force.

The 47th APPPA has come to a conclusion after 10 momentous months, the statement said. Referring to the drastic and visible change in the work culture since May 2014, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi took charge, Singh pointed out several out of box decisions like doing away with the time old practice of getting documents attested by a gazetted officer and replacing the same with self-attestation, doing away with interviews for lower rung selections and abolition of more than 1,500 obsolete rules/laws.

The minister was informed that in the 46th APPPA course, the participants got the opportunity to visit Gujarat, Sikkim, Darjeeling as part of their rural, urban and forward area visits and IIPA organised special lectures and talks on very relevant topics of Indo-China border conflicts, Indo-Pakistan relations, Mission Karmayogi, New Education Policy etc., which enriched the knowledge of the participants.

The APPPA course got started in 1975 and was first of its kind in the mid-career training segment designed for middle level civil servants and defence forces officers. About 1,600 officers have attended this course so far from 1975 and this programme has been the flagship programme of IIPA. APPA deals in a variety of subjects useful for middle level officers to prepare them for more responsible leadership and decision-making positions.

It encompasses a wide range of modules from public administration, finance, digital governance, cyber security, agriculture economics, urban governance and consumer protection to environment and climate change and social systems. On the occasion, Singh presented postgraduate degrees of MPhil and Diploma in Public Administration to 31 participants of 47th APPPA and MPhil degree through Punjab University, Chandigarh, to the participants of 46th APPPA.

Earlier, Singh presided over the signing of an MoU between IIPA and Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics, BISAG-N for preparing civil services mentoring module.