Jitender Singh reviews DoPT action plan for 2016

Reviewing the action plan for 2016, Minister of State Dr.Jitendra Singh said here today that government plans to strike down "irrelevant" laws by repealing or revoking more than thousand existing ones as a part of its mission to achieve the goal of minimum government and maximum governance.

Reiterating Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi's call to do away with avoidable laws and rules, Dr Jitendra Singh said the government will abolish several of the existing laws which have ceased to be relevant in the present date and time.

Disclosing that as many as 1053 laws are pending for Parliament approval to be repealed, Dr.Singh said about 649 laws have been sent and circulated among ministries and states for comments and the process of repealing or revoking them will be carried forward after obtaining the comments of the concerned ministries and departments.

Dr.Singh said that the DoPT proposes to reduce the number of tribunals from 36 to 17 and at the same time, reduce or restructure as many as 685 autonomous bodies/institutions during the year 2016. In the times to come, the DoPT will also chalk out a possible plan for exit of Government sectors from hospitals, air services etc and a sunset clause will also be attached to every new scheme.

In a bid to ensure ease of governance, Dr.Singh said that a mechanism will be worked out wherein the information already available on the official websites or official portals is not to be asked for through RTIs etc, in order to reduce the pendency and workload accruing from such queries. While the work on simplified one-page form and self-attestation of certificates has already begun, the DoPT is also working out the feasibility of issuing the Residence/Domicile certificates as well as SCs/STs/OBCs certificate at primary age to every child by class 5, he added.

Sanjay Kothari, Secretary DoPT and senior officers of the department were present at the meeting.