Journalism of Courage
After 25 months of hard work,in 2011,Pune district collectorate became the first collectorate in the state to bag ISO 9001:2008 certification for zero pendency in all its offices.
Bureau Veritas,which gives certification for 140 countries,handed the certification to the chief secretary in Mumbai which was then handed over to Deshmukh and Dalvi.
To achieve zero pendency,files had to be cleared in a stipulated time frame. Files A were most important,files B were to be preserved for 30 years,files C to be preserved for 10 years and files D for a year. I had to visit each and every office of all the taluks to mobilise the administration to clear files according to this segregation, said Dalvi.
The district collectorate took up the mammoth task of clearing 11,000 files in 25 months and disposing of another 23 lakh files. It started in 2008 when Dalvi took over as Pune collector and saw huge pendency. He reorganised the working pattern,sorted out records and installed an efficient file clearing system in every office. A six bundle system was adopted for files and unnecessary files were destroyed. Each official was accountable for the file disposal system within a specific time frame and all offices were audited during this period. Divisional commissioner Prabhakar Deshmukh said such a drive would be rolled out in the entire division as well. It is a very novel initiative, he added.
The former collector said the model was to ensure efficiency,transparency and speedy delivery to the people.
Collector Deshmukh who is keen to carry forward the project said they would maintain the same efficiency as it also ensures better accountability. The existing mode of operations will be maintained to clear pendency. The moment a file reaches an official,it his responsibility to clear the case and move it forward so that there is no pendency,’ said Deshmukh.
The certification involves all 106 circle offices,106 mamledar offices,14 tehsildar offices,five SDO offices,17 land acquisition offices and 20 office branches in the collectorate. ISO certification has been usually awarded to independent offices and this is the first time an entire umbrella of offices under the district collectorate is being cleared for the certification.
Dalvi said the achievement of 99.93 per cent of file clearance by various departments under the zero pendency and daily disposal scheme,besides the hassle-free and follow-up free administration,got the certification.
