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The Union Ministry of Power today launched a nation-wide distribution reforms training programme in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Addressing the participants, the Union Power Minister, Shri P.M. Sayeed underlined the need for involving consumers and beneficiary associations in capacity building programmes to create the right atmosphere for Power Sector reforms.
The training programme called Distribution Reforms Upgrade and Management Project (DRUM) is aimed at enhancing the capacity of utilities in order to reduce distribution losses, enhance the quality and reliability of power supply and improve financial and commercial performance of state utilities. Dwelling on capacity developments, Shri P.M. Sayeed said “capacity building should have a cascading effect and every step must be taken to further disseminate knowledge to the working level”.
CORE International, a US based management consulting firm will spearhead the DRUM training programme by forging effective partnership with a number of dedicated Indian institutions. Initially, eleven institutes in the country including a number of Central power training institutes will be involved in the programme. These include the National Power Training Institute, (NPTI), Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI), Reliance Management Institute (RMI), IIT, Kanpur and Central Power Research Institute (CPRI).
Training will focus on 3 broad functional areas viz. technical, managerial and business and supportive functions. About 25000 utilities, managers, engineers and technicians from all over India will be trained in the first phase. During the training programme, the aim will also be to inculcate best practices which have already been implemented in certain state utilities all over the country. The participants will not only be senior level executives of state utilities but also engineers involved in procurement, running of sub-stations and actual everyday power distribution.
CORE International who is spearheading the training programme signed an MOU with IIT, Kharagpur in the presence of the Union Power Minister for starting the training programme. A DRUM training document and a calendar of training was also unveiled by the Union Power Minister, Shri P.M. Sayeed.
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