Modi believes that technology can alone foster e-Governance and that good governance can only happen through an efficient, proactive and citizen-friendly system. That is why, the Government of Gujarat initiated a massive training programme to reorient over 5,00,000 state government employees and to strengthen the administrative machinery.

The Karmayogi Maha Abhiyan (literally meaning a mega campaign to transform employees into sincere workers), an initiative unique to Gujarat is all about harnessing the strengths of government employees and sensitizing them towards their accountability as public servants. Self motivation, communication skills, an empathetic response, a proactive attitude, cost consciousness, team work – no government employee ever had any formal training in these essential values of work. It is only in Gujarat that an effort has been launched to train, on a continuous basis, its karmacharis (employees) in order to transform them as karmayogis committed to work.

The Karmayogi Maha Abhiyan consists of Chintan Shibirs (reflection workshops for profound thinking) as well as V-Governance. Chintan Shibirs are annual retreats for ministers and senior government officials for brainstorming, progress review, goal setting and developing a collective vision while V-Governance is a unique training initiative for Vibrant Governance through ‘change in mindset’. Till date, 4 Chintan Shibirs have been held and lacs of officers/employees have undergone the V-Governance training. In addition to government officials, over 2.5 lac teachers too have undergone the karmayogi training.

Today, the Government of Gujarat has a formidable team of Karmayogis – trained to develop a positive attitude, be cost conscious and citizen friendly – a team that has transformed itself into an ‘a-sarkari’ (non governmental) mode of functioning to become “asarkari” (effective).