GUWAHATI: The National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, North Eastern Regional Centre (Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India), Guwahati (NIRDPR NERC), has been organizing 3-day soft skills training for officials of the State's Department of Sericulture. The programme is being sponsored by the Department of Sericulture under the World Bank Project 'Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project (APART)', stated a press release.
The Director of Sericulture, Kajori Rajkhowa has negotiated with NIRDPR NERC for organizing the customized skill training to the department officials for empowering the Farmer Interest Groups to promote silk productivity in the State.
The main aim of the training is to create a pool of employees who possess the soft skills expected at the workplace, particularly the Department of Sericulture. This training module has been developed by NIRDPR NERC to identify the essential soft skills to the employees of the Sericulture Department for effectively discharging their duties without much stress and to practically train them using various activities. This would pave the way for professional success and subsequently better citizens in the rural society.
A total of 100 officials are being trained by NIRDPR NERC in three batches. The first batch was organized during June 13-15, wherein 30 officials from three districts of Assam underwent the training successfully.
The second training programme was inaugurated by Prof Bhabesh Goswami, Vice-Chancellor, Cotton University, in presence of Dr R Murugesan, Director, NIRDPR NERC, Ataur Rehman, Joint Director, Department of Sericulture and Dr T Vijaya Kumar and Dr V Suresh Babu, Course Directors on Wednesday.
Dr T Vijaya Kumar welcomed dignitaries and participants to the event. He laid focus on the significance of the soft skills and mentioned that research indicates that through soft skills training 16 per cent of employees' performance was improved in many organizations and nearly 12 per cent of increase in organizational productivity was noticed.
Dr R Murugesan, while delivering the opening remarks, said that sericulture is a labour intensive production system.
While setting the context for the programme, Dr V Suresh Babu stated that sericulture is the 'Queen of Textiles' and is an agro-based industry playing a vital role in the rural economy. It upholds the remunerative livelihood and employment opportunity for the rural community. India, being country with rich biodiversity, produces all five commercially know silk such as mulberry (accounts for 61%), tropical tassar and oak tassar (accounts for 8%), eri (accounts for 7%) and muga silk (accounts for 0.7% of raw silk production). However, Assam is able to contribute only 18 per cent to the national raw silk production. Assam is a unique State producing four varieties of silk which includes muga (95%), eri (65%), oak tassar (being produced only in North Cachar and Karbi Anglong districts) and mulberry. Eri silk being an ahimsa silk not only produces spun silk from open-ended cocoons, but also feeds the rural population in form of pre-pupa and pupa which is rich in proteins and lipids. Through this kind of capacity-building programmes of the officials, the Department of Sericulture is aiming to achieve the targets as per the Silk Policy 2020.
Prof Bhabesh Goswami, while delivering the inaugural address, emphasized the need for soft skills training to improve the performance of the employees. Further, he mentioned that user-friendly technologies are available in plenty and the official need to learn the technologies and need to know the unknown things for effective functioning. Since the eri and muga silk are a part of Assamese culture and traditions, the department should focus on enhancing the productivity of these varieties of silk and establish the brand image at the international level. He also appreciated the training design and module developed by NIRDPR on soft skills with emphasis on bringing change in attitude, significance of time management and other dimensions like creativity and leadership, communication skills, emotional intelligence and team building.
The programme concluded with the vote of thanks proposed by Dr V Suresh Babu.
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