The Hindu               07.12.2013

66 people chosen for civic leadership incubator programme

In a move aimed at refining municipal governance, the
Bangalore Political Action Committee (B.PAC) inaugurated its civic
leadership training programme on Friday for a batch of 66 candidates
selected from a list of 250 applicants. Of the 66 shortlisted trainees
from 20 Assembly constituencies in Bangalore city, Byatarayanapura tops
the list with seven candidates followed by B.T.M. Layout with six
candidates.

Training plan

The
initiative, which is called B.CLIP (B.PAC Civic Leadership Incubator
Programme), will involve a mix of classroom training in areas of public
policy, municipal administration and campaign finance for three months.
Thereafter, they will participate in field work and work alongside
appointed city officials for six months to create a ward manifesto and
action plan.

Among those in the first batch of the
program is an IIT graduate, a nominated BBMP councillor, a postgraduate
from the U.S. who has worked on Sakala, a member of Team Anna as well as
a columnist in a weekly newspaper, who is also a director at an NGO, to
name a few.

“The commencement of B.CLIP is a very
significant milestone in the long and challenging journey to improve
governance in this city,” said Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, president, B.PAC.
Urging citizens to apply to the B.CLIP programme, the vice-president of
B.PAC, Mohandas Pai, said that the “programme has been designed with
inputs from leaders in civic administration and stalwarts from across
the political spectrum”.