New Delhi: The MoS, Dr Jitendra Singh presented Certificates of Appreciation to 9 Ministries/Departments for implementation of e-Office programme in their respective ministries/departments, at a function organised by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.
The awards were presented to the following ministries/departments:
- Department of Heavy Industry
- Ministry of Tribal Affairs
- Ministry of Corporate Affairs
- Department of Expenditure
- Ministry of Civil Aviation
- Ministry of Mines
- NITI Aayog
- Inter-State Council Secretariat
- Department of Health Research
On 14.03.2018, Dr. Jitendra Singh had presented the Certificates of Appreciation to 34 Ministries/Departments in recognition of the commendable work done by them in e-Office implementation.
As the result of continuous and proactive monitoring, the number of active e-files has increased from 7,848 in 2016 to 10,44,935 in January, 2019. The level of Ministries/ Departments on e-Office has increased significantly. 75 Ministries/Departments are now actively using the e-Office platform. In addition to the 34 Ministries/Departments that achieved the specified target for e-Office earlier, the above mentioned 9 Ministries/Departments achieved the target stipulated for complete e-Office. The total number of Ministries/Departments that achieved the target specified for complete e-Office is 43 now.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Jitendra Singh congratulated the awarded ministries/departments for the successful implementation of e-office. He said that this is in line with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mantra of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’. He said that the e-office system helps in the tracking of files and gives more transparency to the system. He also spoke about the Government initiatives, including RTI portal, Pensions portal, Self-attestation by citizens and doing away with the interviews for lower posts, among others. He also mentioned that, due to the proactive and citizen-centric approach in handling, the grievances received by the DARPG have increased about 8 times, i.e. from about 2 lakh grievances in 2014 to about 16 lakhs at present. This has happened because of quick response and timely disposal by the Department, he said. The Minister said that the Government has made optimum utilisation of technology for the benefit of citizens.
Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) is the nodal Department for monitoring implementation of e-Office project. National Informatics Centre (NIC) is the technical partner in this project. DARPG is committed to implement e-Office across all Central Ministries/Departments.
DARPG has also set up a Project Management Unit (PMU) to monitor the progress of implementation of e-Office by Central Ministries/Departments till October 2018.
E-Office is a Mission Mode Project under Digital India Programme. The e-Office solution enables core operations of the Government at all levels to be performed in a virtual paperless environment. Transaction of Government Business, instead of being done in physical files, is carried out on electronic files wherein all the receipts and files are moved in an electronic mode at the click of a button. This ensures instantaneous receipts of files and enables easy monitoring of time taken at each level for disposal. This application is, thus, a major step in realizing the objective of an open and responsive Government. The Government intends to make all its’ Ministries/Departments paper-free in the near future. Since August 2016, DAR&PG has coordinated with all Central Ministries/Departments through rigorous review meetings on the status of implementation of e-Office and has formulated fortnightly status reports.
The Secretary, DARPG, K. V. Eapen and senior officers of the department were also present on the occasion.