Mohali, June 24: The five-day workshop on ‘Leadership, Ethics, and Emerging Issues in Water Resources’ culminated today at the Indian School of Business, Mohali. As many as 45 senior officials of the Department of Water Resources, Punjab, attended the workshop organised by Bharti Institute of Public Policy, ISB’s policy think tank, to equip government officials with contemporary management concepts and enhance their motivation and leadership skills, along with imparting research-driven knowledge on water management, security and agri-water conflicts resolution.
“The training was aimed for young members of the department. Through interactions with subject matter experts on water governance, agri-policy, climate change crisis, contemporary leadership, and ethics, the training will help the officials to overcome the challenges of status quo thinking, expand horizons of knowledge, and pave way for process re-engineering to enhance the system efficiency,” said Mr Krishan Kumar, IAS, Secretary, Department of Water Resources, Punjab. “It’s an attempt to inculcate innovative thinking in young officials and thereby improve the work dynamics. We plan to expand such training workshops to more batches in near future,” added Mr Kumar.
The sessions, undertaken by faculty experts at ISB and eminent policy practitioners, focused on gaining in-depth perspectives on agricultural water management in the state; role of public-private partnership in water sector, issues in water governance, climate change impact, and environmental perspectives. Also, multiple sessions were dedicated to understanding the concepts of sustainable leadership; emotional intelligence and learning agility, and ethical dilemmas in public leadership, imparted through team building activities, simulation assignments, group projects, in-class role-plays and individual presentations. The officials were also given self-reflective exercises for a better comprehension and analysis of one’s own workstyle, motivation drive, aims and challenges.
“It is important to upgrade the skills and motivational levels of public service officials at periodic intervals. Also, since water resources is among the most crucial aspect in an agrarian economy like Punjab, the workshop has helped officials from this sector to get acquainted with modern management principals and new knowledge in water resources domain,” said Dr Aarushi Jain, Associate Director, Bharti Institute of Public Policy.