Fin dept officials to be equipped with latest concepts, tools

Kolkata: In a bid to acquaint officers of the state Finance department with the latest concepts, tools and techniques for better and more informed decision-making, the Mamata Banerjee government is introducing a Management Development Programme (MDP), in collaboration with Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

In- service officers of West Bengal Audit and Accounts Service (WBA&AS) and West Bengal Revenue Service (WBRS) will be part of the training programme.

The batch size for the fully residential training programme will be 20 or 25 officers, depending upon their availability. The course structure and topics will be finalised in consultation with IIM Calcutta, based on the requirement of target participants of a particular programme.

A senior official of the state Finance department informed that the training programme will start from December 24 and end on December 29. The WBA&AS cell under the Finance department will function as the nodal authority for conducting the MDP programme at IIM Calcutta.

The nod from Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi has already been received and the state Finance department has come out with a notification in this regard.

Officers intending to participate in the MDP programme are

required to fill up a form furnishing details like his/her educational qualifications, joining of service, confirmation in service, whether he/she had attended any previous training, etc.

The filled up forms will be forwarded with recommendation to the respective cadre controlling authority in the Finance department, for further scrutiny and selection. The cadre controlling authority will compile the list based on certain criteria that include present assignment of officers and specific length of service rendered by an officer.

The selection of officers will be made by the state Finance department after thorough evaluation of their general service records and suitability for the training programme.

There may be a mixture of officers from WBA&AS and WBRS in each batch for the training programme, depending upon their duties, posting and capabilities, batch size etc.

A senior officer from the

state Finance department will be present as an observer for comprehensive monitoring and evaluation of the training programme.

Prof Ashok Banerjee will be the course director on behalf of IIM Calcutta.