Date:11/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/11/stories/2008051150620200.htm

Other States - Orissa

‘Chak De’ formula for business managers

Staff Reporter

Unique training for NABARD officials

Deliberations revolve around two other films too
Aim is to teach officials how theories are put into practice

BHUBANESWAR: Shahrukh Khan-starrer Chak De India may be an inspirational movie for the sports community in the country. It has come in handy even for management gurus here.

They are now out to make use of the Chak De formula to teach business managers and their students at large.

The story of the movie was quite an interesting lesson for some 20 senior officials from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), who were undergoing a unique training on community mobilisation and institution building at the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB) here.

Chak De was not the only movie that was prescribed for these senior NABARD officials. Manthan and Swadesh are two other films, which were core of five-day training programme that concluded recently.

The sessions and deliberations during the training programme revolved around these films, said Prof. Niraj Kumar, a faculty at XIMB and coordinator of the programme.

‘Easy to understand’

“Although there are theoretical lessons on community mobilisations and institution building, the officials have got to know as to how theories are put into applications in films,” Prof. Kumar said.

E. Taraing, who hails from Meghalaya, said: “Since films like Swadesh and Manthan are in Hindi, I was not able to follow the dialogues, but visuals from the films and discussion in the classroom made things easier to understand and learn.”

“Now, I realise the fundamental issues in community-based institution building remain the same and we are facing similar problems in north-eastern states,” she said.

Films were selected based on the skills, which these field officers need to acquire to implement various NABARD schemes.

Participants were first exposed to the concepts and theories and then films became the point of discussions. They were able to see those concepts being put into practice.

“Moreover, these films depict rural socio-economic, cultural and political situation so well that all participants are able to identify these films as similar to their own work situations,” Prof. Kumar said.