3 min readNew DelhiNov 23, 2023 08:35 AM IST
First published on: Nov 22, 2023 at 08:01 PM IST
Condemned vehicles, outdated laptops, old files. The Union government has earned more than Rs 550 crore by disposing of scrap during a clean-up campaign in October, an official said.
The focus of the drive, in its third edition this year, was on cantonment areas, paramilitary forces, office spaces and barracks, said Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances Secretary V Srinivas. “(Between October 2-31) 2.58 lakh office spaces were covered. During this period, 164 lakh square feet of office space was freed and 26 lakh files were weeded out; the revenue earned from scrap disposal was Rs 556.35 crores.”
Srinivas said: “We found ministries were carrying huge numbers of additional vehicles, for example, which were not sold. Condemned vehicles was a big area where in which this year more than 4,500 vehicles have been sold. The second one was with regard to electronic scrap — outdated laptops, desktops, photocopiers, printers. These have been disposed of in huge numbers. The third one is public grievances. The number of grievances disposed of this time in the campaign is 501,000.”
The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) was the nodal department for this month-long campaign, Srinivas said.
“Cumulatively over the last three years, more than four lakh office spaces have been cleaned, 96 lakh files have been cleared, and 355 lakh square feet of space has been freed. The total revenue earned is 1,116 core. It has been highly successful and represents the largest campaign India has undertaken in institutionalising Swachhata, and minimising pendency in the government,” he said.
Sharing details of the measures taken up for reduction of pendency of public grievances, Srinivas said: “The DARPG came up with an AI-based grievance monitoring system that developed right down to the grassroot level out of all the 1,00,000 officers. For example, if I want to see how many cases of citizen grievances have been received from Jammu or Srinagar in any other priority sector, say Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, you can drill down and see…”
Srinivas said the highest number of grievances are usually received by the Ministry of Labor and Employment. “It received about 12,932 receipts in the month of September (2023). The Department of Financial Services received 12,890 grievances and the Agriculture Ministry received 11,198 grievances.”
According to the official, the government has now streamlined the way records are managed and preserved. “We have also transferred a number of records to the National Archives. So, this year, we had about 5,000 files of historical value, which are more than 25 years old, which have been transferred to National Archives of India for preservation and for presenting to the researchers…,” he said.
Discussing the monitoring mechanism of the campaign, Srinivas said: “The campaign is monitored on a special campaign portal. On a daily basis, tweets are issued by all ministries. In addition, they upload the best practices on the portal…”
Condemned vehicles was a big area where in which this year more than 4,500 vehicles have been sold. (File) 
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