Amid coronavirus lockdown, trainee IAS officers attend virtual classes and do the dishes and other chores all by themselves while maintaining social distancing norms during their stay at a prestigious training academy at Mussoorie, according to an official statement issued on Tuesday.
Union Minister Jitendra Singh was briefed about this andother activities being done at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy ofAdministration (LBSNAA) for the training of bureaucrats on COVID-19 relatedissues during a video conference with the director and faculty of the premierinstitution.
He was briefed on how SOPs have been formed for differentaspects of the functioning of the academy including training of IAS officerTrainees of Phase-I, the statement issued by the Personnel Ministry said.
“The classes are being conducted online which areaccessed by them in their respective rooms. Similarly, food is being deliveredto the hostels and the utensils and room cleaning is done by the officertrainees themselves,” it said.
COVID-19 related inputs have been given through variousmechanisms including showing films, online discussion, assignments andstructured inputs, the statement said.
All the sections in the academy have made their own SOPsrelating to social distancing and hygiene etc., it said.
“All staff of the academy including outsourced workershave been trained by faculty of the academy as per the Ministry of Health andFamily Welfare guidelines. All protocols of the Ministry of Health and FamilyWelfare are being followed in line with the instructions of districtadministration as well,” the statement said.
Director, LBSNAA, Sanjeev Chopra briefed Singh, the ministerof state for personnel, about the initiatives taken in the wake of pandemiclike the academy’s initiatives in documenting best practices for mitigatingCOVID-19, completion of phase-I training through onlinemode/assessment/reviews, IT infrastructure and upgradation for COVID 19 medicalinfrastructure and civil services association to reach to support nationaldisasters (CARUNA) among others.
The academy has reinvented its training through innovativeuse of technology and learning management system and all inputs and assignmentsby officer trainees are being routed through its own ‘gyan portal’, thestatement said. It has also come up with an internet radio facility to aidthese efforts, the statement said.
The officer trainees have also been encouraged to take upvarious activities and competitions through different clubs and societies.
The society for social services has been involved in gettingface masks made by the self-help groups and distribution to officer traineesand staff and also distribution of ration to indigent families in and aroundthe academy in collaboration with district administration, the Personnel Ministrysaid.
“The Centre for Disaster Management is collecting bestpractices in COVID-19 management from across the country and different facultymembers of the academy are involved in the initiative of the civil servicesassociation namely CARUNA,” it said.Singh appreciated thesteps taken by the academy and expressed the hope that many more such novelefforts would be taken to mitigate the crisis, the statement added.