Kerala Institute of Local Administration

KILA campus
Motto Training, research and extension
Type Government autonomous
Established 1990
Chairman James Varghese IAS, Principal Secretary to Government of Kerala
President Dr M K Muneer
Director Dr P P Balan
Location Mulagunnathu Kavu, Thrissur, Kerala, India
Campus Wikimap Location
Website www.kilaonline,org

Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) is an autonomous training, research and consultancy organisation constituted under the Ministry of Local Self Government, government of Kerala, registered as per Travancore – Cochin Literacy, Scientific and Charitable Societies Act-1995. KILA was established in 1990, in the pattern of a national institute, with the main objective of strengthening decentralization and local governance.

Objectives

The exact objectives, included in the Memorandum of Association and Rules [1] of the Institute issued as a Government Order (MS) No 139/90/LAD dated 13 September 1990, are as follows:-

Physical facilities

KILA is situated on an eight hectare green campus.

New Guest House

Facilities include two fully furnished guest houses which can accommodate 200 participants at a time, an auditorium with 500 seating capacity, a seminar hall for 100 persons, a conference room for 30 participants, five training halls altogether accommodate 200 participants, ands one computer center with 20 computers. Two dining halls that can accommodate 200 persons at a time are on campus.

KILA office has a local area network for its administration, internet connection, printers and all accessories essential fore a training institute.[2]

Organisational pattern

KILA was established in the pattern of a national institute with the main objective of training, research and consultancy in decentralised governance and administration.

A Workshop in Session

KILA was registered as an autonomous institution under the Travancore-Cochin Literary, Scientific and Charitable Societies Act 1955. KILA is the only institution in India that functions with the sole mandate of promoting decentralised governance both in urban and rural areas. As a result of this, efforts are on to establish KILA as an international training centre on local governance and declare KILA as the SAARC centre of excellence in local governance.

Overview of activities

KILA has been engaged in the capacity building activities for local governments in Kerala since its establishment in 1990.

A workshop chaired by S M Vijayanand in session

The institute is supported by the government of Kerala as its institution for training, research and consultancy for the local self-government institutions.

Training is a dominant activity of KILA, with an out turn of around one lakh trained manpower in Kerala. The institute has conducted research studies and brought out reports and working papers.[3]

The majority of the training programmes are of short duration ranging from one day to five days at a stretch. But some training programmes stretch for a month. A Certificate Course on Panchayati Raj was a one-month-long programme for elected representatives.

Training programmes

The training programmes offered by KILA [4] are:

[5]The chart on the right side of this page shows the growth of training programmes conducted in the institute.[6]

Publications

The institute disseminates the research and recommendations of its

Administration Block

training programmes and workshops through publications. In order to meet the training needs of the participants from other Indian states and neighbouring countries KILA has translated documents into English and other Indian languages like Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Kannada.

A list of publications is available at the publication page of KILA website

Library and information services

KILA Library and Information Division is the centre for collection, organization and dissemination of information on decentralisation and local governance. [7]

KILA Library holds books, reports, journals and other documents in print or digital form. It creates and distributes a few cd-rom publications and offers a phone-in-service on local governance. The division promotes digital archiving technologies in sectors closely related to local governance and has evolved a methodology for digital archiving using free software Winisis, Genisis and Greenstone.

The Library & Information Division has brought out documents for promoting the use of information technologies to support local governance in Kerala, as part of its library extension services.[8]

CD-ROM publications

KILA has created/collected digital documents, organising them as searchable archives and distributing them as digital collections/CD-ROM libraries in subject areas related to decentralisation.

The two CD-ROM publications prominent among them are:-

More than two dozen CD-ROM libraries containing around 5000 digital documents are distributed as part of the library services on no-profit basis. Most prominent among them is Community Development Library containing 1785 documents of around 1.6 lakh pages. Maual on Digital Document Archiivng is a publication of KILA intended to promote the concept of digital document archiving using free software tools promoted by Unesco.

International collaboration

KILA collaborates with national and international agencies like Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation (SDC), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UN-HABITAT, and Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) with a motive of deepening local governance. KILA collaborates with the Sri Lanka Institute of Local Governance and All India Institute of Local Self Governments, Mumbai to conduct international course in decentralised governance and poverty alleviation.

References

  1. Kerala Institite of Local Administration : Memorandum of Association and Rules
  2. A Brochure on KILA
  3. See Official Website of KILAm for a list of publications
  4. The State of Panchayats : 2007-08 , An independent assessment, Volume I Thematic Report, IRMA & Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Govt of India P 348 - 349
  5. KILA Schedule of Training Programmes
  6. See data from various annual administration reports of KILA
  7. Decentralisation Watch Kerala
  8. E-LIS. E-prints in Library and Information Science

Additional reading

External links

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