Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Wednesday approved 111 new members of the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), including nine newly recruited IAS officers serving as Assistant Secretaries at the Centre.
Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel, is also the chairman of the IIPA, set up to equip public servants with domain knowledge.
Presiding over the 321st meeting of the IIPA executive council, he said among the new members, the youngest, K Karthik, is 26 years old and serving as Assistant Secretary in the Defence Ministry, while the oldest, Suresh Kumar, 77, is a retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer.
Union Minister expressed satisfaction that over 500 members were enrolled since November 2021, when he decided to throw open the institute’s membership to the serving officers. The membership was earlier reserved for only retired officers.
The minister expressed happiness that the new members are of different age groups and from allied and defence services and academic and professional fields, a statement issued by the Personnel Ministry said.
He urged the regional branches of IIPA to speed up the membership drive to bring quality manpower to the IIPA fraternity.
Singh also asked the members of the executive council to do a brainstorming to visualise a larger role of IIPA in near future and also to explore the participation of private sector in capacity building.
The minister said the institute has to have a futuristic vision for the next 25 years to attain the goals set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“To achieve this, the institute needs to have an integrated approach to work in cohesion with departments/organisations/set-ups and entities with similar scope and focus, related to training, administrative expertise,” he said.
Earlier, Singh inaugurated the new conference hall of IIPA “Sambhav”. The 321st meeting of the IIPA executive council was held in the hall.
