Cabinet approves capacity building programme for civil servants, new languages Bill for J&K

The Union Cabinet Wednesday approved a new capacity building programme titled ‘Mission Karmayogi’ for civil servants with an aim to upgrade the post-recruitment training mechanism of the officers and employees at all levels.

Addressing the media, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said officers and employees in the government will get an opportunity to improve their performance with the Mission Karmayogi.

“Mission Karmayogi aims to prepare Indian Civil Servants for the future by making them more creative, constructive, imaginative, innovative, proactive, professional, progressive, energetic, enabling, transparent and technology-enabled,” he said.

Union Minister Jitendra Singh said a Prime Minister-led council will approve and monitor the capacity building plans for the programme. It will also include state Chief Ministers, Union Cabinet ministers and experts.

The government also plans to have a capacity building department, which will have experts in related fields and global professionals, he added. A nominal fee will be charged for the programme which will be compensated by the organisation of the government employee.

Among other decisions, the Cabinet approved a bill under which Kashmiri, Dogri and Hindi, apart from the existing Urdu and English, will be the official languages in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Jammu and Kashmir Official Languages Bill, 2020 will be introduced in Parliament in the upcoming Monsoon Session, Javadekar said. The Bill received the Cabinet nod on Wednesday at a meeting presided by Prime Minister.

“Inclusion of Dogri, Hindi and Kashmiri as official languages in Jammu and Kashmir is not only a fulfilment of a long-pending public demand but also in keeping with the spirit of equality ushered after August 5, 2019,” Singh added.

The Cabinet also approved three MoUs – one between the Textile Ministry and Japan for quality evaluation method; between Mining Ministry and Finland; and between the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and Denmark.