IGNFA Begins IFS Mid-Career Training for 68 Officers

Bhupender Yadav, the Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, spent time on 12 October 2026 in New Delhi with officers of the Indian Forest Service (IFS) who have joined the Mid-Career Training (MCT) Phase-III programme. The course is the nineteenth of its series and is being conducted by the Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy (IGNFA).

Who was present

Besides the minister, the gathering had the Secretary of the ministry, Narendra Bhooshan; the Director General of Forests and Special Secretary, Santosh Tiwari; the Additional Director General for Wildlife, Ramesh Pandey; and the Director of IGNFA, Rajendra Prasad Khajuria.

The programme at a glance

What the minister told the officers

Mr Yadav asked the officers to step past the role of a regulator and work instead as leaders, innovators and enablers of development that lasts. He acknowledged what the service has done to guard the country's forests, wildlife and ecological inheritance, and counted among the gains a wider forest and tree cover, carbon locked away, the care of woodlands and wetlands, and the restoration of landscapes through drives that bring ordinary citizens in, such as Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam, MISHTI, the Aravalli Green Wall and Nagar Van Yojana. He said the goal of Viksit Bharat@2047 has to hold economic growth and ecological safety together, and listed conflict between people and wild animals, forest fires, a changing climate and the balance between building and conserving as the hard problems ahead, each needing science and the involvement of local communities.

Technology and the field

The minister pressed the case for newer tools, naming geographic information systems, remote sensing and artificial intelligence, to be used alongside steady training and work with communities that draws on their inherited knowledge. He described living resources as the most vital on the planet, which is why the officers are being given a view of policy making at the level of the ministry as well as experience of carrying it out in the field. He urged them to look for practical answers of their own, strengthen the institutions they serve, and prepare forest management plans with fresh thinking.

How the course is built

A Line Ministry Module will take the officers to central ministries and organisations so that they see how sectors connect. The visits to Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh will look at wildlife management, biodiversity, ecotourism and forest management run with communities. A Management Module covers leadership, decision making, human resources, finance, the governance of forest commons, negotiation, change management and ethics, while a Forestry Module takes up environmental conventions, artificial intelligence in forestry, digital change, biodiversity governance, climate finance, forest rights issues, watershed management, recent amendments to the forest conservation law and human-wildlife conflict.