NEW DELHI: The Central government has earned over Rs 254 crore from disposal of scrap lying across its office premises in the country and cleared 37 lakh square feet of space in the three weeks since launch of Special Swachhata campaign 2.0 on October 2, minister of state for personnel Jitendra Singh shared on Tuesday.
The campaign — as part of which various ministries and departments of the Central government are reviewing and clearing defunct and pending files including those related to grievances, cleaning the office premises by disposing of unused and unnecessary items and adopting environment-friendly and sustainable practices — will conclude on October 31.
Singh, while presenting an update about the status and progress of Special Swachhata campaign 2.0, said that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then campaign is a testimony of the “whole of government” and “whole of nation” approach, which had achieved the form of a countrywide “jan andolan”.
The minister — who was addressing the press conference also attended by information and broadcasting secretary, department of administrative reforms and public grievances (DARPG) secretary, Prasar Bharati CEO, among others — informed that 40 lac files were reviewed, 3,05,268 public grievances redressed, 5,416 references from MPs responded to and 588 rules eased between October 2 and now.
Singh said tremendous enthusiasm was seen among ministries and departments for institutionalising ‘swachhata’ and minimising pendency. He urged officials to draw inspiration from the Prime Minister’s recent post on Twitter in which he stated that “such efforts are not only innovative and commendable but most importantly remind us of our basic civic duty of keeping our surroundings and public places clean.”
The Special Swacchata Campaign 2.0 has been implemented in remote outstation offices, foreign missions and posts, attached and subordinate offices, and includes several citizen-centric swachhata initiatives. The campaign, holistic in size and scale, witnessed widespread participation from thousands of officials and citizens, claimed the minister.
Over the past three weeks weeks, a cleanliness campaign was conducted by the department of posts in 17,767 post offices, by the department of pharmaceuticals in 5,974 campaign sites, by department of defence in 4,578 campaign sites and by the ministry of home affairs across 4,896 campaign sites.
Also, mechanised cleaning was initiated by the ministry of railways in most railway stations and all the 7,337 railway stations in the country cleaned under Special Campaign 2.0.
The department of posts has installed roof-top solar panels after clearing space on the roof of Dak Bhawan, resulting in about Rs 4 lakh per month of savings in electricity bills. The department also indicated that it has discontinued the sealing wax currently being used to airlock postal deliveries. This would result in eliminating noxious fumes that are spurious for the environment and the staff.
The coal ministry undertook the “Garbage to Garden” initiative in Central Coal Fields Limited premises in Bokaro and Kargali fields. As part of this, gardens have been developed in coalfields that were until now junkyards. The ministry of mines has started to set up rainwater harvesting pits and compost plants on its premises in Hyderabad and Nagpur.