The training session in progress in Patna on Friday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, Sept. 9: The urban local bodies, at present are able to generate only 15 per cent of their total revenue generation capacity, which makes them inefficient in discharging their duties.

The state urban development department and its support agency, the Department for International Development (DFID), today organised a two-day training session.

The training session is being held at AN Sinha Institute of Social Sciences.

Efforts are being made to generate awareness and capacity enhancement of their workforce to make them self-sufficient bodies working for grassroots developments across the state.

Awareness on urban schemes, including solid waste management, poverty alleviation schemes and office management among others were discusssed. The training session being conducted as a part of the Support Programme for Urban Reforms (SPUR) of DFID was today specifically organised for training of mayors and deputy mayors of 28 urban local bodies in the state.

“The urban development department under SPUR has undertaken a major capacity development campaign for strengthening all 28 urban local bodies over a period of two years. Under this campaign, training would be provided to all officials of the urban local bodies, including the mayor, the deputy mayor, accountants and others, who are being trained on legal framework of urban governance, revenue generation of local bodies, executive powers of elected representatives, computerisation and overall office management among other things. At present, training is being imparted to the mayor and deputy mayor, which will later be followed by similar training to other workforce of the urban local bodies,” said D.M. Divakar, director of AN Sinha Institute of Social Sciences.

The training programme today started with inauguration by the principal secretary of urban development department, Shashi Shekhar Sharma, followed by presentation by an informative lecture on 74th amendment in the Constitution of India, Bihar Municipal Act and the role and responsibilities of elected representatives by Gangadhar Jha, a Delhi-based urban governance specialist.

Later, a Lucknow-based urban governance specialist Kunal Kumar Singh made a presentation on urban development schemes.

“We got to know about many important facts about roles and responsibilities of mayors and deputy mayors, about which we were unaware earlier. Also, important provisions of New Bihar Municipal Act, 2011 were explained, which were did not know about. Moreover, we were told about ways of generating funds for various schemes,” said Alok Kumar Agarwal, mayor of Begusarai Municipal Corporation.