Patna, May 13: About 35-40 members of Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) will undergo training for urban management under a Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) initiative.

The programme will be organised by the ministry of urban development, through Centre for Environment Planning and Technological (Cept) University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

According to sources, the members will include senior administrative officials like commissioner, deputy commissioner, technical employees and elected members of the civic agency including the mayor and deputy mayor.

The training will be conducted as a part of a Regional Capacity Building Hub (RCBH) programme under the ministry of urban development. The programme co-ordinator of the RCBH programme at Cept University, Saswat Bandyopadhyay told The Telegraph over the phone from Ahmedabad: “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 schemes.”

“The programme will be held on May 19 and 20 for the executive officials and on May 21 for the elected members,” said Hiten Desai, a professor at Cept University. The training session will be held in Central University, Bihar in Patna where members of Dhanbad, Ranchi, Raipur, Bodhgaya and Asansol municipal corporations will also participate.

Senior experts of the technical university will co-ordinate capacity building and training activities in the areas of urban poverty, slums, housing and building construction statistics, including design, development and deployment of e-tools and statistical applications.

Talking about the importance of such a training programme, Bandyopadyay said: “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 5,000 urban and parastatal officials across the country. Implementation of JNNURM in 65 cities, till now, has clearly highlighted the need of a long-term capacity building support to the cities. Thus, the ministry has come up with a region-specific capacity building strategy under the RCBH programme.”

Patna mayor Afzal Imam said: “We hope to avail this opportunity to enhance the knowledge and skill base of employees at our urban local-body level and this way all parastatals involved in implementation of schemes will develop a better understanding on how to implement JNNURM schemes,” he said.