Waste to wealth: Centre earns over Rs 100 crore from scrap disposal

New Delhi: The Centre has earned over Rs 100 crore in revenue from the disposal of scrap during the month-long ongoing special cleanliness campaign, a government official said on Thursday.

Besides this, different central government departments have so far weeded out more than 12 lakh files and freed 97.2 lakh sq feet of space during the campaign period, he said.

The special campaign 4.0, being carried out from October 2-31, 2024, implements the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for institutionalising 'swachhata' and reducing pendency in government.

The campaign has gathered significant momentum after the first two weeks of its implementation and several innovative best practices are seen - in terms of easing rules and ease of citizens lives, said V Srinivas, Secretary of the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) -- nodal department for the special campaign.

"During the campaign period so far, 2.7 lakh offices have been covered. A revenue of Rs 101.48 crore has been earned from scrap disposal. As many as 12,33,638 files have been weeded out and 97.2 lakh square feet of space has been freed," he told PTI.

In the years 2021-2023, special campaigns have grown in size and scale, implemented in 4.5 lakh offices, freeing 355 lakh sq ft of office space and earning a whopping Rs 1,162 crore of revenue from scrap disposal.

Nearly one crore physical files were weeded under these special campaigns, said Srinivas, a 1989 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Rajasthan cadre.

The special campaign 4.0 is India’s largest G2G (government to government) campaign for reducing pendency which will conclude on October 31.

"The key performance benchmarks of the special campaign will be sustained in the post-campaign period with three hours/week being devoted to swachhata in all ministries/departments," Srinivas said.

Giving details on the campaign, he said 369 rules have been eased and 3,86,539 public grievances have been redressed as of October 23. In addition to these, 22,85,564 physical files and 2,96,373 e-files have been reviewed.

The ongoing campaign focuses on field/outstation offices responsible for service delivery or having a public interface, in addition to the ministries/departments and their attached/subordinate offices.

This year’s special campaign is expected to bring in significant innovative practices and systemic reform for a conducive work environment.