As a part of civil services reforms approved by the Hon’ble Prime Minister for the three All India Services, viz IAS, IPS & IFS, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), GOI has entrusted the responsibility to conduct Mid Career Training (MCT) programmes for IFS officers to IGNFA. The MCT programmes for IFS officers has been started by IGNFA since Dec 2009. The programme is being organised for three phases of the service viz I, II and III which are meant for officers of seniority 7 to 9, 14 to 16 and 26 to 28 years respectively.

MCT is an ambitious training programme which aims to provide best training opportunities to the officers by roping in some of the best training institutions in the country and abroad. The officers attending the programme get a chance to listen to best of the experts in their respective fields and also get exposure to best management practices of natural resources in the foreign countries. Involvement of institutions like IIMs, ICFRE, WII and FSI has helped bringing in innovative ways of thinking and develop modern management perspective of the forestry sector among the Participants. Under the MCT programme besides getting in-country training at IGNFA and other institutions like IIMs, the officers also attend a module in foreign country in Phase-II Programme.

Nominations for different courses of the three phases are done by IGNFA following the rules approved by DoPT and MoEF&CC, Govt. of India. About 60 officers are nominated in each course and 5 to 6 courses in all, covering the three phases are conducted in a year.

MCT programmes are of mandatory nature. The Indian forest service (Pay) Rules have been revised vide notification no. 20011/1/2006-AIS-II dated 21.02.2008 and its amendment though IFS (Pay) Second Amendment Rule, 2008 vide notification no 14021/3/2008-AIS-II dated 27.09.2008, to make the MCT programmes compulsory for award of Junior Administrative grade, IInd Super time scale and further increments respectively to the concerned officers.