The Bharti Institute of Public Policy (BIPP) at Indian School of Business (ISB) offers a three-pronged guidance to elected representatives through our Parliamentary & Legislative Support Programme. The programme builds on Bharti Institute’s focus on evidence-based policies and the Institute’s strength in capacity building support to public policy leaders, government officials, private corporations, and the developmental sector. Beyond the individual participants, the programme will enable research -driven policy formulation and legislative debates The three-pronged approach of LSP includes Legislative Training, Research Support, and Data Support. 

The Legislative Training involves a series of workshops, specifically designed and curated for the state legislators based on a comprehensive Training Need Assessment. The training modules are aimed to equip legislators to be more effective and exert greater influence in state and national policymaking.  The modules leverage modern management principles and use innovative pedagogy to ensure an effective teaching and learning process. Simulation activities, Case studies, group-work, Role plays, and similar interactive methodologies are used in the trainings. The sessions are focused on broad areas of public policy, economic and social development, leadership, strategy and innovation, climate change and sustainable development, digital transformation, and public finance, to mention a few.

These training sessions for legislators are delivered by experts in the field of public policy, economy, innovations, digital transformation, and strategy. It provides an excellent opportunity for the legislators to engage in discussions that strengthens the leadership skills of individual legislators while also reinforcing the legislature as an institution. The workshops allows lawmakers and their support staff to explore the leadership challenges of representing people in democratic institutions. It helps them in addressing key elements of personal, ethical, and political leadership that can help them carry out their roles and responsibilities as elected representatives. During the programme, legislators delve into specific policy problems and choices, understand best practices across the globe, and understand how to make more effective and citizen-oriented policies. Most importantly the trainings provide the legislators with immersive learning through field visits and interactions with legislators of other states, public policy professionals, and leading academics. 

The second prong is the Legislative Research Fellowship, where qualified candidates from the state are selected and trained to provide research support to legislators. Bharti Institute handles the responsibility of selecting, training, and mentoring these fellows. The Legislative Research Fellowship involves providing extensive support to legislators for their legislative work in form of research assistance, policy draft preparation, assistance in the legislative business like Questions, Adjournment Motions, Calling Attention Notices, etc. The aim is to improve the quality of deliberations in the legislature.

Legislative Research Fellows not only get an opportunity to provide research support to the legislators, but they get trained by subject area experts specifically curated by the Bharti Institute during their full tenure to equip them with excellent research capabilities. During the Fellowship, the Fellows get the opportunity to engage with officers, legislators, and policy practitioners from diverse sectors and appreciate important policy and development issues of their state as well as whole country.  

When the legislative assembly is not in the session, the Fellows spend their time in their scheduled trainings organized by Bharti Institute and the State Government. The fellows are also expected to work upon data collection for establishment of State Data Portal as part of the Legislative Support Programme under the guidance of Bharti Institute and state government. 

Bharti Institute has developed the India Data Portal  which is a one-stop open-access portal to access, interact with, and visualize data for use by journalists, researchers, students, policy makers, administrators, NGOs, entrepreneurs, and most importantly legislators. The portal contains a data repository with processed and documented public datasets on the social sector and environment. The repository includes an exhaustive collection of public datasets with overlapping as well as independent well-established remote-sensing and satellite products. Bharti Institute will create a State Data Portal as a sub-set of the India Data Portal and enhance it with state level datasets to make state-level data easily accessible for policy debates by the legislators. The Legislative Research Fellows, with help of Bharti Institute team of experts  and data scientists, and under the guidance of concerned state coordination agency, will on establishing and enhancing the State Data Portal.  

Currently, the Government of Meghalaya has collaborated with the BIPP, ISB for their flagship Meghalaya Legislative Research Fellowship (MLRF) programme , through the Meghalaya Institute of Governance which is acting as the nodal agency for the MLRF programme. The MLRF is again a three-pronged Legislative Support Programme started in Oct 2021. 

Public Policy Workshop for Legislators

In furtherance of its multi-point collaboration with the Government of Meghalaya, Bharti Institute organised unique leadership training programme in the form of ‘Public Policy Workshop for Legislators’, to strengthen the legislative institution and explore leadership challenges and solutions for policymakers. The four-day coveted workshop, held at ISB Campus, Mohali, from May 16^th to May 19^th, saw participation of 28 MLAs, including three Ministers in-charge of key portfolios of the state of Meghalaya, besides chief officials of Meghalaya Legislative Assembly and state agencies.

With sessions focusing on policy challenges for India in general and Meghalaya in particular, the workshop facilitated the legislators with insights to research-oriented policy formulation and implementation, through case studies, group assignments and team-building activities. The programme was specifically designed and curated for legislators as per the requirements gauged through a Training Need Assessment test. The sessions, undertaken by faculty experts at ISB and experienced practitioners from multiple domains, focused on improving the nuanced understanding of aspects related to public policy, leadership management, innovation, sustainable development, digital transformation, and public finance, to name a few. Additionally, this also helped invigorating rapport and teamwork among the political leadership spanning across different ideological and party affiliations.

In addition to class engagements, the MLAs had also visited Punjab Vidhan Sabha on the concluding day while interactions were also galore with the Governor of Punjab, Sh. Banwarilal Purohit, who presided over the special dinner organised by ISB for the Meghalayan guests, at its premises on May 18.