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.