Right after the Swachh Sagar Surakshit Sagar Campaign culmination, there began the constructive phase of Swachh Bharat ie. Special Swachhata Campaign 2.0. ” under the vision of the Prime Minister of India. In a press meeting, the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, he stated that “”whole of government” and “whole of nation” approach, which has ultimately achieved the form of a countrywide “Jan Andolan”. Swachhata Campaign was successfully conducted in 68363 campaign sites.
The story so far:
Swachhata Campaign 2.0 was much of sweeping way the pending tasks and dusting the dusts from the heaps of files in every corner of government premises. In contexts to bring a work ethical transformation, the Swachhata Campaign 2.0 was much about sweeping away pending tasks and dusting off dust. The goal was to create a seamless working flow that was obstructed by old files pending processing, uneven file storage, and scraps and junk accumulation in the office.
While reviewing the progress achieved in Week 3 of Special Campaign 2.0, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh briefed, “We have achieved significant progress in Special Swachha Campaign 2.o. All of the government departments and officials successfully addressed pending grievances and cleared and scraped old files. Over 3,05,268 Public Grievances were Redressed, 5416 MP’s references replied and 588 Rules were eased, while 40 lac files were reviewed. Speaking of generating Wealth from Wealth, the minister mentioned that “Over Rs. 254 Crore earned from scrap disposal, 37.19 lac sq feet of space freed”.
Pointing out Clean India Mission, Dr. Jitendra Singh said tremendous enthusiasm was being witnessed in Ministries and Department for institutionalizing Swachhata and minimizing pendency. He urged officials to draw inspiration from Prime Minister’s words in his tweet 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 Campaign 2.0 was also implemented in remote outstation offices, foreign missions and posts, and attached and subordinate offices, besides citizen-centric swachhata initiatives. The Campaign was holistic in size and scale, and witnessed widespread participation from thousands of officials and citizens who came together to create a movement for Swachhata in Government Offices.
In addition to uniting people from all walks of life, Special Swachh Bharat Campaign 2.0 also succeeded in generating wealth out of waste. During this campaign, we found that the electronics scrap and other stuff was likely to be sell and generate cash for the government.” I am glad that this is a new source of income to the exchequer,” the Minister remarked.
Earlier, the Government of India framed the policy of creating “Waste to Wealth. He highlighted various initiatives that was worth noting for the officials. The Bengaluru railway station staff created a sculpture from the discarded plastic bottles while the rail coach restaurant has been started at Guntur railway station. The Women and Child Development Ministry is conducting training sessions for making useful products from the waste, and a Parcel Café opened in Kolkata GPO by the postal department in a space cleared of waste.
He further informed the media that the Central Board of Indirect Taxes has designed a theme “Aranya” in their open office corridor on wildlife, while the coal ministry has launched a garbage-to-garden effort. Other attempts by other ministries included the restoration of cleared area, the construction of a Dorla tribal home by the cultural ministry, and the display of Madhubani artwork.
The minister underlined that state governments have been kept in the loop about the campaign, and several of them have shown massive support. The Telangana and Puducherry Raj Bhawans have grabbed the lead among others.
All Cabinet Ministers, Ministers of State, and Secretaries to the Government of India participated in the Special Campaign 2.0 providing leadership and guidance in implementation. In 3 weeks, the Department of Posts has conducted the cleanliness campaign in 17,767 Post Offices, the Ministry of Railways has conducted in 7,028 Railway Stations, the Department of Pharmaceuticals in 5,974 campaign sites, the Department of Defence in 4,578 campaign sites and the Ministry of Home Affairs in 4,896 campaign sites.
The progress of Special Campaign 2.0 is being monitored on a dedicated portal www.pgportal.gov.in/scdpm22 on a daily basis.
Nodal Officers have been appointed in all Ministries/ Departments who monitor work undertaken by field offices. The Special Campaign 2.0 is reviewed on a weekly basis by Secretaries to the Government of India. The progress of the Special Campaign 2.0 has been widely reported in social media with over 10,000 social media tweets by Ministries/ Departments.
The Prime Minister of India once said “ the mantra of 3R – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – is at the heart of any vision towards the sustainable development of mankind, all stakeholders, producers, consumers, and the state alike – must alike –must adhere to this golden principle which can contribute significantly in solving the twin challenges of waste management as well as sustainable development.
Henceforth, it is clear that we need to identify, test, validate and deploy technologies to treat waste and generate energy, recycle materials, extract resources of value and provide a technology database that could ultimately help to study and analyze the production of waste and later creating sustainable solutions for disposal.
The Swachh Bharat Mission was launched on 2nd Oct 2015, by Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, and following that every year we celebrate 2nd October as Swachh Bharat or Clean India. Hundreds of archaic rules that were hampering the clearing of waste were removed by the Modi government over months.
By Priyanka S Raj
The writer is a freelance journalist and the Media coordinator in, the Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India.
She can be reached at her Twitter: @mahipriyankaraj
Email id : priyanka.vigyanprasar@gmail.com