FEED BACK ON MID CAREER TRAINING PROGRAM

Mid Career Training Program FOR IRS (DT) OFFICERS FROM 05-09-2022 TO 30-09-2022 at IIM, LUCKNOW - COHORT -3

The Course Objectives related and relevant for the present and future development were fairly met. However, the following suggestions / feedback provided for improving both the structure of Course as well as its core contents.

1. Programme design and delivery is NOT free from certain avoidable inherent defects in terms of area and coverage, periodicity, distribution of time among various components and faculty mix of academicians and practitioner’s. No doubt it had created an indelible imprint on developing managerial skills to motivate the subordinates, understanding the behavioural aspects and certain techniques of Upward delegation. Apart from this, it gave us a profound behavioural understanding of human beings for a productive and healthy life style.

2. In the first instance, staying in a single place for four week’s will normally reduce interest in any form of learning at Management Development Programme. Ideally, it has to be split into two parts of three weeks at IIM and one week should ideally include a foreign component

2.1. In the alternative, it can also be equally spread out in two different IIMs so as to maximise the advantage of varied spectrum of Management Professors and also having a different ambience after two weeks.

2.2. We can also think of utilising the resources of other Administrative Training Institutes for Services like IAS, IPS, IA&AS, IRTS, IES etc., This will also add up to building a very healthy and productive relation with other Services and augment our Capacity building at cutting edge levels.

3. The Course contents are heavily tilted towards management aspects and there is less emphasis on the Governance aspect for middle level bureaucrats who are heading a Range, as an important functionary of Revenue Service.

4. There is a need to bring in specialised faculty who are to cover matters like Transfer Pricing, International Taxation, Investigation matters, TPL and L&R related matters. There is also a need to train the Officers in GEM related issues, Handling vigilance matters (Preventive and active matters), effective usage of data obtained from Insight portal etc.,

5. Though the IIM Professors are well equipped with handling management topics, adequate number of industry specialists are required. We had only one session in a week and it is found be insufficient. Consultants from professional firms, CEOs/CFOs of leading Corporate sector would be more suitable having practical experience of running a Company.

6. The topics provided for discussion in certain sessions were more than generalised lacking a focus on what is relevant for the present. There is a specific need to identify the subjects and inform IIMs for their relevance in the context of our present working environment. This can also allow the Professors to come well prepared before commencement of the Session.  We have given individual weekly feed backs rating the quality of session and I am sure wes have marked “poor” for certain sessions which were found be lacking adequate preparation.

8. The weekly feed back rated individual sessions from Poor to Outstanding (1 to 5) and can be a good basis for eliminating certain topics from the curriculum. There is also scope for improving the design of weekly feed back to make it more objective and useful for improving the contents of sessions on real time basis.

9. There were certain exceedingly interesting topics relating to Conflict Management,Financial statement analysis, IFRS, Communication skills, Cyber Risk assessment-Digi signs, Global Macro Economic outlook, International Taxation, Machine Learning and AI in Big Data Analytics, Strategic Management of firms, Carbon Taxation, Block Chain and Fin tech Applications. The Professors have given us a real insight into the topics with their vast experience in the respective fields.

10. The online sessions from IBFD, Netherlands were not very interactive and could not arise interest in the topics presented. Even though the topics were very relevant, there was not much benefit from the sessions due to this disconnect.

11. The Case Study and presentations are required to be taken more seriously and instead of presenting everything on the last day of course, we can have one or two presentations every week end, so as to provide adequate and meaningful purpose for such presentation. This will also enable the IIMs to assess the strengths of the Cohort and suitably design the contents in coming months.

Facilities at IIM:

12. Our over all stay at IIM, including logistics, food provided, facilities of laundry, sports facilities were excellent and memorable. The Programme Director Prof. Seshadev Sahoo and Addl. Course Director Ms. Vishaka Chauhan, were very receptive to the suggestions made. Prof. Nishant Uppal, Head of MDP was charismatic in his approach and ably oversaw conduct of the program.

13. We were taken good care in all aspects of stay and there is no room for any complaints. We were given two welcome dinners and they were quite memorable due to excellent. Hospitality and courtesy of the team led by the Programme Director.

14. The entire MDP team made excellent efforts to keep us very comfortable in all aspects. The ambience of IIM is exceedingly pro-active for a meaningful stay and we are highly appreciative of the management.

s.srinivas@incometax.gov.in / ssvas1966@gmail.com