The Center ranks all Union Ministries by capacity building; coal tops, aviation last

The Center has begun ranking all 88 Union ministries and departments on how effectively they are upskilling their workforce under the Karmayogi mission, creating the first consolidated civil service capacity building scorecard as it pushes for artificial intelligence (AI)-based workforce planning across the bureaucracy.

The rankings, conducted by Mint, highlight the wide disparity in the preparedness of ministries under the government’s flagship civil service reform programme. The coal ministry ranked first with a composite score of 50.46, while the civil aviation ministry ranked last with 0.42, according to two government officials and a June 18 release by Karmayogi Bharat, a government non-profit company set up by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).

The rankings, based on performance as of May 31, have been circulated to all ministries and departments and measure how effectively they are building institutional capacity under Mission Karmayogi, the government’s civil service upskilling programme.

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A wide gap

Among key ministries and agencies, the Ministry of the Interior ranked seventh (38.56), Agriculture and Farmer Welfare ranked 16th (36.71), the Prime Minister’s Office ranked 52nd (10.86), External Relations ranked 58th (9.45), the Presidential Secretariat ranked 71st (5.70) and the Cabinet Secretariat 79,361. DoPT ranked eighth with 38.07.

Within the Ministry of Finance, the Departments of Expenditure and Revenue ranked sixth and ninth respectively, while DIPAM, Economy, Public Enterprises and Financial Services ranked 44th, 55th, 60th and 73rd.

“As the mission continues to mature and expand, the evaluation framework and associated indicators will remain dynamic and may be refined regularly to better reflect priority areas of capacity building and learning outcomes,” Karmayogi Bharat said in a statement.

Learning pressure

The rankings are already forcing ministries to scrutinize their performance.

In a July 3 memo reviewed by Mint, issued after the June 18 communication, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), which was ranked 23rd with a score of 32.64, told its units that undergoing at least one hour of learning on the iGOT platform carries significant weightage in the rankings.

“According to the latest iGOT consumption reports available with the department, only about 22% of the enlisted officers/officials in DoT completed one hour or more of learning during May 2026, while the corresponding figure for June 2026 is only about 13.5%. This has adversely affected the department’s overall performance and evaluation under the Karmayogi mission,” the memo said.

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In an email reply on July 9, Karmayogi Bharat CEO Chhavi Bharadwaj said, “We request you not to publish this as the data is in the process of revision.”

Bharadwaj did not respond to Mint’s follow-up queries sent on July 10.

The jobs department, ranked 14th, said its geographically dispersed workforce has made continuous learning a major commitment, adding that it has made sustained progress through technology-based learning, structured training and competency-based capacity building.

“Building a culture of continuous learning in such a large workforce is a significant undertaking and the department has made steady progress through the use of technology-enabled learning, structured training programs and competency-based capacity building initiatives,” the department said in response to Mint queries.

The other top ministries and departments were the Department of Environment, Forestry and Climate Change (second), Mines (third), Legislative Department (fourth) and Department of Defense Production (fifth).

Queries emailed on July 9 to all ministries and unions, including the PMO, DoPT and DoT, remained unanswered till press time.

The next phase

The ranking comes as the government moves into the next phase of Mission Karmayogi, which has tasked ministries and departments to prepare AI-generated Capacity Building Plans (CBPs) that map the competencies required for each role and recommend customized learning paths for officials.

These plans will feed into the Departments’ Annual Capacity Building Plans and the Officials’ Annual Performance Review Report for FY 2026-27, shifting the focus from uniform training programs to competency-based workforce planning.

Karmayogi Bharat was established by DoPT in 2022 to implement the Karmayogi mission and drive competency based capacity building for civil servants through Karmayogi’s iGOT educational platform.

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Administration experts said continuous upskilling is becoming critical as artificial intelligence reshapes public administration.

“If we don’t improve our skills, we will be left behind, while those who do will move far ahead in the race. This is a very important step and every official must take it very seriously to not be left behind. Otherwise, the competition will overtake them and they may not be able to deliver what they want to achieve or what is expected of them,” said Pravir Krishna, former secretary to the government of Cooperative Development and executive director of the Tribal Union of India.

Sonal Arora, Country Manager, GI Group Holding, said civil servants, like private sector professionals, need to keep their knowledge up to date as technology, governance and politics evolve rapidly.