The Times of India       17.03.2011

AHMEDABAD: The Centre for
Environmental Planning and Technology (Cept) University, Ahmedabad has
been identified as one of the three main regional hub institutions to
conduct training programmes for capacity building of urban officials
across the 65 Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM)
cities in India.

The training will be conducted as a part of a
Regional Capacity Building Hub (RCBH) programme under the Ministry of
Urban Development (MoUD) which will be launched on Thursday at Cept.

Programme coordinator of the RCBH at Cept University, Saswat Bandyopadhyay said, “We will be conducting the training programmes for JnNURM
cities in northern and eastern regions, as covered under JnNURM
mission. The objective is to enhance their capacity of executing urban
development projects.”

The training for capacity building will
be conducted in nine thematic areas including urban management,
financial management and project development, implementation and
management among others. The programme envisages training around 5000
urban and parastatal officials across the country. Infrastructure
Development Finance Company Limited (IDFC) and Administrative Staff
College of India ( ASCI) at Hyderabad have also been identified to conduct the training programmes along with Cept.

Talking about the importance of such a training programme, Bandyopadyay
said, “Implementation of JnNURM in the 65 cities, till now, has clearly
highlighted the need of long term capacity building support to the
cities. Thus, MoUD has come up with region specific capacity building
strategy under the RCBH programme. The RCBH training delivery will begin
from March 25 from Raipur and Chandigarh.