IIM gurus to teach management skills to UP politicians

Lucknow Sep 6(UNI) Just before the crucial assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, management gurus of the Indian Institute of Management-Lucknow would launch a 'political management skill programme' for the upcoming politicians of the state.

The programme has been drawn on the lines of Trinity College of Politics under the Havard University.

Prof Debashish Chatterjee, professor of Human Resource Management and head of Global Centre for Leadership and Human Values at IIM-Lucknow, has designed a management skills programme with a special focus on politicians in the state.

The first batch of the programme is slated to start after Diwali, sources in the Lucknow Management Association (LMA), the main organisor of the programme confirmed. The organisors would also meet assembly speaker Mata Prasad Pandey for his consent for the programme.

Prof. Chatterjee said the programme will inculcate in the upcoming politicians a professional approach. The programme will, however, not deal with how to win the elections or to fight the caste based politics prevailing in the state.

Narrating his experience as a senior Fulbright professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in 2000-2001, where he had many politicians among his students, he claimed such management programmes upgrade their communication and performance skills.

He said the programme would also deal with the situation if people from the underworld like Abu Salem try to enter the politics.

''We will try to aware the politicians that the voters of their constitutuencies are like consumer of the marketing field,'' he said.

The IIM (L) professor is ready with a blueprint for the training session. He said the training sessions would be started with help from political leaders and the Lucknow Management Association (LMA).

Welcoming the new concept, UP Congress chief Salman Khurshid said the training would be a two-way learning experience. While the management gurus will learn the nuances of politics and we will know management tactics.

Ruling Samajwadi Party leader and youngest cabinet minister in the Mulayam Singh Yadav government in the state, Ujjawal Raman Singh said that the programme would certainly have a good impact on the politicians and they would know what to do for the people.

Elaborating the programme's base, Lucknow management Association president Jayant Krishna said the programme is not concerned about how the politicians would win the elections but it is basically about sensitising them on key issues relating to their interaction with the public and their performance.

Mr Krishna, general manager of TCS claims there is a need to tell politicians in the state about development of the global and Indian economy.

UNI MB NAB LL RS1350