UGC, Capacity Building Commission meet to create annual capacity building plan

NEW DELHI: Dr R Balasubramaniam, Member HR, Capacity Building Commission (CBC), on March 16, conducted a meeting with Professor M Jagadesh Kumar, Chairman, University Grants Commission (UGC) and senior UGC officials to begin the process of developing commission's annual capacity building plan.

Highlighting the training as demand-driven, Balasubramaniam explained the Annual Capacity Building Plans for ministries, departments, organizations (MDOs). "The CBC team will conduct a baseline study of UGC, assess the capacity needs and identify interventions, draft an ACBP and a roadmap for its implementation and finalise and facilitate the implementation of ACBP for UGC," he added.

Balasubramaniam briefly explained that the working of the Commission included shifting the mindset of all government employees from rule based approach to role based thinking and to ensure every single employee becomes a lifelong learner.

Highlighting the initiatives being taken in UGC during the last one year, UGC Chairman stated that an effort has been made to work collectively as he meet the bureau heads along with their staff every month to discuss issues they’re facing and suggest any ideas to improve the working of the organization.

"A Weekly Bureau Heads meeting is also organised to take stock of the status of the ongoing activities. Any new regulations or guidelines are shared with all Bureau Heads for their input/suggestions before being finalized," Kumar stated.

Some other initiatives taken by the UGC from last year

• To make UGC paperless., e office, a portal for commission members has been prepared and is being systematically implemented for the past 8 months, which ensures that all agenda is uploaded on the portal and members can log in and review the agenda and give their suggestions online. Also, commission meetings are held online.
• SAMVAD an online interactive session of UGC chairman, held every two months with stakeholders wherein their queries are answered online.
• UGC also engaged a business process engineering consultant who spent a few months with employees from top to bottom. Based on his inputs and reports many changes have been introduced in UGC like taking care of the needs of the staff, a new IT policy, and improvement in network connections in the UGC office.
• UGC has recently set up a learning and development cell for organizing capacity building initiatives for its employees. 72 UGC employees have registered on the SWAYAM portal for the IIT Kanpur MOOC on enhancing soft skills and personality for the January 2023 semester.
• UGC held a two-day face-to-face training program on "Reservation in Services" in the UGC office. 32 officials and staff participated on March 3 and 4, 2023.