By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram
Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and his entire cabinet will take a break from work to attend classes on improving governance at the Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode on Thursday.
The picturesque IIM campus in Kozhikode where Kerala ministers will huddle together in a classroom and take lessons on result-oriented governance on Thursday
The programme titled Governance Insight for Transformation (Gift) - Unopened, indicating the state’s failure to tap the resources and opportunities readily available for it, will begin with an interaction between the B School students and the chief minister at 8am.
The ‘regular’ classes will begin at 9.45am and will be led by a team headed by IIM-K director Prof Debashish Chatterjee. The faculty includes Saji Gopinath, K Unnikrishnan Nair, Satnu Nair, Abhilash Nair, Kulbushan Balooni, Joffi Thomas and Debabrata Chatterjee.
A statement from the Chief Minister’s Office yesterday said the ministers would also interact with Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, founder of Asia’s largest cardiac care centre, the Narayana Hridayalaya, and Chanthrajit Chatterjee, director (investments), Confederation of Indian Industries (CII).
Result-oriented leadership qualities and creation of a work culture will be the focal point. There will be group discussions on farming, ecology, infrastructure development, education, healthcare and investments. The classes will conclude at 5pm.
According to the IIM officials, the objective is to achieve increased productivity and efficiency by sharpening the governance skills, goal-based planning and result-oriented working strategies of ministers and their departments.
“As a pioneer in leadership training, IIM-K is confident that this workshop will enhance the governance skills of our leaders, imparting Kerala with the ability to set a global footprint in the sector of economic development,” said Chatterjee.
He delivers workshops focusing on going beyond conventional thinking for generating breakthrough ideas and actionable strategies. “IIM-K has played host to several leadership workshops which address topics related to schools, colleges, corporates, NGOs and now the government,” he said.
Meanwhile, the chief minister said he did not need lessons on democracy from Pinarayi Vijayan, the state secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), who demanded Chandy’s resignation owning moral responsibility in the palmolein oil import case after a court ordered a probe into his role.
“No Congressman, including myself, needs to take lessons on democratic decorum from the CPM secretary,” Chandy told reporters after the weekly cabinet meeting yesterday. “The government will act in a democratic manner in pursuing the case.”
He said out of the 110 programmes announced by the United Democratic Front government which were to be implemented within 100 days, 30 schemes had achieved the target, 54 were in progress and in 26 schemes fresh initiates were needed. These schemes would be evaluated before August 31 and a report would be published on September 11 before unveiling a yearlong agenda.
