Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Ministry of Science and Technology, MoS PMO, Space and Atomic Energy, Dr Jitendra Singh for Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, who is also National Chairman of the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), today approved 111 new members of IIPA including 9 newly recruited IAS officers serving as Assistant Secretaries at the centre.
Among the new members, the youngest K Karthik serving as Asst Secretary in Defence Ministry is 26 years old, while the oldest Mr Suresh Kumar retired IAS is 77-year-old.
While presiding over the 321st meeting of the Executive Council of IIPA, Dr Jitendra Singh expressed satisfaction that over 500 members were enrolled since November, 2021, when he decided to throw open the IIPA membership to the serving officers, which was earlier reserved for only retired officers. The Minister felt happy that apart from wide range of age, the fresh membership is also coming from Allied and Defence Services and Academic and Professional fields. He urged the regional branches of IIPA to speed up the membership drive to bring quality manpower to IIPA fraternity.
Dr Jitendra Singh urged the members of the executive council to do a brainstorming to visualize a larger role of IIPA in near future and also to explore the participation of private sector in capacity building. The Minister said that the institute has to have a futuristic vision for the next 25 years to attain the goals set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and, to achieve this, the institute needs to have an integrated approach to work in cohesion with similar departments/organizations/set-ups and entities with similar scope and focus, related to training, administrative expertise.
Earlier, Dr Jitendra Singh inaugurated the new Conference Hall of IIPA “Sambhav” and held the 321st meeting of the Executive Council of IIPA in the same hall. He also lauded the role of DG, IIPA and its management for adding two more Conference-Cum lecture hall during the COVID pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
Dr Jitendra Singh also approved the prestigious Paul H Appleby Award for distinguished services to IIPA and to the field of Public Administration to ex-IAS officers Shri V. Balasubramanian, Dr Arun Kumar Rath and the third to Prof D Ravindra Prasad.
The Minister was apprised of the action taken on the minutes of the 320th Meeting of the EC held on 5th July, 20222.The IIPA’s Executive Council has the Vice President of India, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar as its President and Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh, as Chairman.
The meeting was attended by members of IIPA’s Executive Council, including, Shri Shekhar Dutt, former Governor, Chhattisgarh, Shri Srinivas R. Katikithala, Director, LBSNAA, Shri G P Prasain, Shri G R Kurup, Shri Arun Kumar Rath, Shri S.S. Kshatriya, Shri K.K Pandey, Prof N. Lokendra Singh along with Shri Surendra Nath Tripathi, DG, IIPA and Member-Secretary, EC and Shri Amitabh Ranjan, Registrar, IIPA. Several regional branches also attended the meeting virtually.