Probationary civil services officers of the current batch training in Mussoorie are all set to learn new skills as part of a Extra Curricular Module (ECM) which includes cooking, baking and archery. The Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) has invited national champion archer Dinesh Bhil – from Naswadi in Chhota Udepur district of Gujarat – who has dedicated his life to training tribal youths in the sport. This is the second consecutive year that Bhil will train civil service aspirants in archery.
A letter of invitation seeking Bhil’s depuration to the Academy, from October 12 to 30, was sent by Deputy Director and Associate Course Coordinator of the ongoing 95th Foundation Course, Alankrita Singh. It stated, “As part of the curriculum, the Academy plans to organise ECM in diverse skills ranging from art and craft, cooking and baking, sports and social inclusion. To train a group of officer trainees for ECM on Archery, we request you to depute expert Dinesh Bhil to the Academy…”
While Singh turned down the request to elaborate on the plan of the Academy to introduce cooking and baking as part of the ECM, a senior official said that this is the first time that the Academy is planning to expand its extra-curricular activities, given the response to the innovations last year.
In November last year, Bhil had held a three-day course for the trainee officers in Archery on the invitation of the course coordinator NK Sudhanshu. Last year, the academy had detailed the reason behind choosing archery as an ECM for the trainee officers.
The Academy’s invitation letter had said, “These young administrators belonging to services like IAS, IPS, IFS and IRS are going to start a career in public service at a time when aspirations of people and expectations from public servants has increased tremendously. Technology is fast changing the way we deliver public services. Administrators need to have empathy, as sensitivity, focus and balance to live up to the expectations. Officer trainees need to acquire leadership skills to respond to challenging situations in their careers. We are planning to have a three-day training session in Archery for the officer trainees of the 94th Foundation Course.”
Bhil, who will now travel to Mussoorie to conduct the training, said, “I feel extremely honoured that they have invited me to hold this training session…”
