As a part of preparations for ensuing Census 2021, the week-long training of trainer programme (TOT) for developing Master Trainers ended successfully at Himachal Pradesh Institute of Public Administration (HIPA), Fairlawn. While addressing the inaugural session on 18th November, Sh. C.P. Verma, IAS, Director, HIPA had said that the Census operations are of paramount importance to a nation. This time, the capture of data for National Population Register is making the task all the more important. Master trainers play an important role in building an environment for correct data capture. Hence the training must be taken seriously and the doubts must be resolved through feedback. Eighteen master trainers identified reasonably from administration and teaching faculties of colleges. These master trainers would train around 450 field trainers in the state which would further train around 19500 enumerators and supervisors for 2021 Census. Four National Trainers, who were imparted training by the Census Department at national level, took sessions from 9 am to 6 pm in all week days.

Dr. S. K. Kapta, IFS, Director of Census Operations (DCO)/Director of Citizen Registration (DCR) was present in the Valedictory Session. He expected that the six days rigorous training with class room sessions and hands on training has enriched the capacity of participants for imparting effective training to the field trainers.

Sh. Rajender Prasad, Deputy Director Census DCO H.P. said that data would be collected through a specially-designed mobile app for the first time. Sh. Praveen Kumar, Assistant Director Census DCO H.P. said that the monitoring of the entire field operation would be done through the portal called Census Monitoring and Management System. National Trainers  Sh. Diwakar Sharma and Sh. Pravesh Kumar dedicated some specialized sessions on Direct Trainer Skills (DTS) as per the standardized training modules of DoPT, Govt. of India. Ms. Jyoti Rana, HAS, Joint Director, HIPA and Dr. Rakesh Sharma, Programme Coordinator were present on the occasion.