Hyderabad, Nov 22 :National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRD&PR) Today  started a Training of State Programme Coordinators (SPCs) and Young Fellows (YFs) on the Project for Creating Model Gram Panchat Clusters (PCMGPCs) in two batches.
The First batch to be held from November 22 to 26 is dealing with 4 SPCs and 61 YFs, a NIRDPR release here said.
The Training was started with a welcome address by Dr Anjan Kumar Banja, Associate Professor and project coordinator for PMGPCs, NIRD&PR.
He highlighted: “The Phase-1 & evolution of Phase- II of creation of 250 Model GP Clusters across India to achieve Holistic and Sustainable Development through Institutional Strengthening of GPs and enablement of Quality GPDP by providing complementary training, technical guidance and professional handholding support to the GPs, to inspire and motivate other GPs.”
The phase 2 project is to be implemented in collaboration with multiple partners–. the Ministry of Panchayat Raj ( MoPR), NIRDPR, the States & UTs, UNDP and other renowned partner organizations which are experienced in different fields of development.
The GPs are to be at the “center stage” of the programme with communities at the core and fore of it to sustain the initiative. Continuous mentoring and handholding support to the Project GPs under each cluster by one qualified and trained Young Fellow (YF) is the mainstay of the specialized interventions.
There are a few SPC for groups of States & UTs to coordinate with the States/UTs and the YFs under overall guidance of the Project Management Unit set up under the Centre for Panchayati Raj, Decentralised Planning and Social Service Delivery (CPRDP&SSD)of NIRDPR.
From each State/UT, there is in place one State Nodal Officer (SNO) nominated by the RD&PR Department(s) of the State/UT to coordinate State level activities.
The Project can succeed only if the officers and institutions of the RD&PR Department(s), SIRD and District & Block administration provide all-round support to the Project for effective implementation and monitoring of the activities as per the Project Design and NIRDPR guidelines.”
Dr G Narendra Kumar, Director General NIRDPR made key note address highlighting “The importance of Decentralization & Local Finance”.
He highlighted critical issues in decentralized governance in terms of own source revenue, devolution of functions, organizational capacity, service delivery mechanism,creation of parallel structures, inadequate public participation and women’s participation and absence of functional and fiscal devolution. He recommended short term, medium term and long term plans for better fiscal decentralization in local level.
In the duration of the training, various sessions will be taken by prominent figures in local Governance.

The purpose of the training programme to mould the SPCs and YFs to function as change makers and to take the challenge of transforming commonplace GPs into “Beacon GPs” which will be followed by other GPs in all respects.(UNI)