Growth and Development of Training for Senior Forestry Personnel of India

Present Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy (IGNFA) was established as Indian Forest College, as a part of Forest Research Institute, in the year 1938, for training of senior most cadre of forest service of the country. This institute started with a small number of trainees for Superior Forest Service (SFS) but soon became the centre for catering the training needs of neighbouring countries also. Syllabus of training and infrastructure supporting training activities underwent many changes, in the journey of 74 years. It became a centre for training of Indian Forest Service (IFS) probationers when service was reconstituted in 1966. In 1987, it became an institute directly under Ministry of Environment and Forests and was upgraded to the status of academy from college and was renamed as Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy. Though it still fulfills the basic mandate of training initial recruits to IFS, but it has also taken up the responsibility of training of in-service officers of IFS, to keep them updated. In 21^st century, its mandate has further been expanded to include the sensitization programmes for other stakeholders like police officers, revenue service officers, administrative service officers and judicial officers, etc.