PMO gets a cleanliness 'trim', junks 10,000 files

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said on Tuesday said it has "weeded out" over 10,000 files, disposed e-waste and beautified the lawns during a special cleanliness drive under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan over the fortnight.

The drive that concluded on Tuesday has resulted in "the weeding out of over 10,000 files and the transfer of 1,000 files of important archival value to the National Archives of India", said PMO officials.

The "voluntary and participative effort" by officers and staff of the PMO also resulted in the cleaning and beautification of lawns at the western entrance of PMO, removal of scrap and dismantled material, and disposal of e-waste, according to the officials.

This is the third such major drive since Narendra Modi took over as prime minister in May 2014 and called for maintaining cleanliness, which in turn would raise productivity.

"The processing of on-paper petitions and online petitions has been segregated and an electronic mail management system has been introduced resulting in reduction of time in the processing of public petitions from one month to one day," a PMO official said.

"Further, online VVIP letter monitoring system (VLMS), meeting management system and dash board system have been introduced, which increased the efficiency and decreased the time consumed in the process considerably," the official added.

The PMO has junked more than one lakh files since May 2014, emptying two record rooms which are now available for other use. Besides, the auction of old unused items also resulted in freeing two rooms.

"These efforts have helped to free 1,800 square feet of office space within the PMO premises at South Block. This space now accommodates around 50 officials of public wing of the PMO, who earlier functioned from Rail Bhawan due to space constraints at South Block," the official added.