ITANAGAR, 30 Sep: The State Institute of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj (SIRD&PR) completed two block-level off-campus training programmes on localisation of sustainable development goals (LSDG) for Upper Siang, Siang, Shi-Yomi, and East Siang districts, which had begun on 4 September in Mariyang in Upper Siang district.
The blocks covered during the programme were Mariyang and Geku (U/Siang), Rumggong and Pangin (Siang), Mechukha and Monigaon (Shi-Yomi), and Mebo and Ruksin (E/Siang). The institute will cover the remaining blocks of the same district in the next phase of training.
Altogether 726 targeted participants belonging to gram panchayat level LSDG Committees were trained during the process.
“The core objective of conducting such training programmes was to orient the GP-level LSDG Committee members with the nine LSDG themes and their incorporation into the gram panchayat development plan, the planning process of which is going to start from 2 October to prepare a plan for the 2027-2025 financial year in every GP all over the state,” the institute informed in a release.
SIRD&PR Assistant Director SW Bagang, who is the training in-charge of four districts, in his valedictory remarks said that “the idea of conducting the training programmes in an off-campus mode was to reach the participants at their doorsteps and to cut down the involvement of time and expenditures on participants by calling a large number of participants to Itanagar in the absence of the institute’s own hostel facilities.”
He added that “many of the gram panchayat members didn’t know that their names were listed in the LSDG Committee of their respective villages. It was during the ongoing orientation training that they could know their names and the role of such an important committee in achieving SDGs that would be started from the grassroots level.”
Bagang further informed that “the participants of other GP-level LSDG Committee members, particularly representatives from the line departments like health, agriculture, horticulture, fishery, forest, animal husbandry, PHED etc, whose participation was often a question in gram sabhas conducted by the panchayats at the time of GPDP preparation in the past was again lagging during the period.”
He said that “the absence of many member secretaries in such important training programmes may be on account of their engagement in multiple charges, which affected 100 per cent turnout of targeted participants from a few blocks.”
“Without the participation of such important stakeholders from the line departments, achievement of SDGs that are planned to be started from the grassroots level will be a distant dream,” he added.
The nine themes of the LSDG are: poverty-free village, healthy village, child-friendly village, water sufficient village, clean and green village, development of self-sufficient infrastructure in village, socially secured village, good governance village, and engendered development (women-friendly) village.
The series of eight programmes ended in Ruksin on Saturday.
