Rs 12 crore spent on training a waste?

BANGALORE: The Health and Family Welfare Department’s expenditure of a whopping Rs 12 crore, under the World Bank-aided Karnataka Health System Development Reform Project (KHSDRP), on inter-personal training of the health officials has invited criticism from several quarters.Costing nearly Rs 6,000 for each person, the two-day interpersonal training which started last year aims to improve the official’s behaviour, communication skill and motivate them.However, according to some officials, at times when the department is struggling to pay the regular monthly salaries of Zila Panchayat and village health sanitation committees and health workers, the spending of crores of rupees in a training programme such as this, is unproductive.The training reportedly involves taking a batch of 30 officials of Group D to an upscale resort for three days for lessons on attitude change, communication skills and interpersonal training.The officials stated that the department is just pouring money down the drain on a training that has no chance of working. Some of the officials maintained that the world bank aid is a form of soft loan without interest and this is just a ‘wastage’ of the funds.“Once the training gets over, the department does not ensure that whatever have been learnt by the employees is been effectively adopted when they return to work. There is no monitoring mechanism,” said an official requesting anonymity.However, contrary to these observations, S Selva Kumar, Health Commissioner (in-charge) and KHSDRP Project Administrator said, “The government hospital staff is known for their lackadaisical attitude, yelling at patients and attendants, but now the department is training them to behave properly and communicate politely. The training emphasis on commitment towards service, motivation, managerial capacity and team spirit among employees.What is the harm in spending Rs 6,000 per person, when we are paying Rs 25,000, per month for their salaries which also has no accountability of their per day output? Spending on the training can not be termed as ‘wastage’. We do get the feed back from the institutions and the agency who trained them.” Health officers and Group B employees have already completed the two-day interpersonal training programme and the Group C and D training is likely to begin. Kumar also maintained that the tenders have already been floated and the next batch would be trained in October or November. He said the department plans to provide this training to all 40,000 employees.