Centre Earns Rs 364.53 Crore From Scrap Disposal During Cleanliness Drive

Over Rs 364 crore has been earned by the central government from disposal of scrap during the month long India's largest cleanliness campaign, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said today.

He said that special cleanliness campaign 2.0, that was organised from October 2 to 31st, was highly successful in realising Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision for institutionalising 'Swachhata' and minimising pendency.

Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel (Independent Charge), said Rs 364.53 crore was earned from scrap disposal and over 88.05 lakh square feet of space was freed during the campaign.

Giving details of top revenue earners from the scrap, he said the Department of Military Affairs was at the top with Rs 212.76 crore followed by the Coal Ministry at Rs 48.51 crore and the Railways Ministry, Rs 33.05 crore.

The minister said the Ministry of Shipping earned Rs 14.82 crore and the Department of Defence Production earned Rs 13.06 crore from the scrap disposal.

"It was India's largest office cleanliness campaign. It brought behavioural change in people concerned. Though, the campiagn has officially been over but the cleanliness work will carry on," he told PTI.

Briefing the media about the outcomes and best practices of the nationwide campaign, the minister said that special campaign 2.0 was 15 times larger than the campaign of 2021 in terms of cleanliness campaign sites.

He said, Swachhata campaign was successfully conducted in 99,633 campaign sites and 54.5 lakh files were reviewed during it besides redressal of 4,36,855 public grievances.

As many as 8,734 references from Members of Parliament (MPs) were replied and 88 rules were eased during the period October 2-25, the minister said.

Singh said that special campaign was a perfect example of the "whole of government approach" and even went beyond that as overseas missions also took active part in the month-long campaign.

He said, departments/ministries have given special attention to attached/ subordinate/ filed offices including in the remotest parts of India in month long campaign period from October 2-31, 2022.

The campaign sites included central government offices from Drass to Kanyakumari and from Bikaner to Itanagar, the minister said.

Further all Indian missions abroad implemented the special campaign 2.0 with enthusiasm.

The campaign was holistic in size and scale and witnessed widespread participation from thousands of officials and citizens who came together creating a movement for Swachhata in government offices, he said.

Apart from the detailed presentation about the special campaign 2.0 by Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), V Srinivas, Secretary, Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways, Sanjeev Ranjan, Railway Board chairman Vinay Kumar Tripathi, Secretary, Department of Telecommunications, K Rajaraman, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology S Chandrasekhar and chairman of Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs Vivek Johri also shared best practices carried out by their departments during the campaign at the press conference.

The Department of Posts has conducted the cleanliness campaign in 24,000 post offices, the Ministry of Railways has conducted it in 9,374 railway stations, Department of Defence in 5,922 campaign sites and Ministry of Home Affairs in 11,559 campaign sites, a statement issued by the Personnel Ministry said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)