The Institute of Management, Public Administration and Rural Development is located in the heart of the Srinagar city. It is a premier institute which holds a great importance in the administration of the Jammu and Kashmir State. Here the highest officers for the state administration are taught and trained. Moreover, examinations and training course for some lower levels posts are also conducted in this Institution. This Institution, therefore, is important not only for the current but also for the future administration of the state.
One holds a very high regards for the institution and its management from outside. It is thought to be a clean, well ordered and disciplined institution of the state administration and it is believed that all the facilities are available in the institution. Everyone, aspiring for administrative posts ,desires to visit this institution to see its functional and operational peculiarities. However, when one enters the institution and visits it all the imaginary pictures of the institution fade from the mind and a completely different and disappointing picture is presented by the institution.
The institution of excellence gives such impression where one thinks it as a remote office in the administrative hierarchy of the state. Thought the building of the institution looks big and beautiful from the outside but inside it is not all too satisfactory. The rest of the physical environment of the institution has not been well maintained. To exemplify it the bedding used in the hostel of the institution is in pathetic condition, it is so much torn apart and filled will dust and dirt that it stinks and smells like hell. The institution is not equipped with any type of common room, playground, or indoor games hall which are very necessary to shape ones overall development. The officers and other official that come out of this institution need to be in best mental and physical conditions but lack of these facilities makes that wellness next to impossible to achieve.
There is no coordination in the working of the various sections of the institution and communication gap is at every level of its organizational structure. Digitalization which is the trademark of the current age, it seems, has not been adopted by this institution. The institution still works in paper and pen mode. This could have been easilyreplaced by the electronic and digital modes, and gadgets,but somewhere the will in this direction seems to have been missing in the management of the institution.
The damages caused in the deluge of the year 2014 are still given as a reason for many faults and limitations of the institution. Enough time has passed since then and the operational and functional capabilities should have by now touched the optimal levels. But nothing of that sort seems to have taken place. The ground floor of main building is yet to be repaired completely after the four years of the floods which turns and enthusiast into pessimist regarding the state of the institution.
One wonders how the institution could be producing well trained officers and officials. How the institution whose physical environment and infrastructure is in such conditions can shape the personality of people who are taught there. Plus, the lack of coordination and cohesiveness in the working of the institution must be hampering the optimum development of the officers as necessary for their jobs. Overall, the delivery of the services by the institution and that by the officers that are produced in the institution is far below par.
The government of the day and the administration of this institution should realize the importance of the institution which they should have realized since the beginning of the institution. They should begin the general overhauling of the institution both in its infrastructural development and functional and operational advancement. Failure in doing so would surely put the entire future administrative machinery of the state in jeopardy.
The government should provide adequate budgetary provisions for the institution and the entire restoration world after the floods of 2014 should be commissioned sooner the better. Hope the message is well taken somewhere in the administrative machinery and governance hierarchy of the state. Fingers are crossed.
Arshad Khan can be reached at arshad9708@gmail.com
