Go Paperless and Get PM's Award, Govt Tells Departments

New Delhi: Central government ministries and departments will now be rewarded for successful implementation of e-Office or 'paperless office' initiative.

The move is aimed at improving the ease of governance and expediting the administrative process.

Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh has written to all ministers to take urgent action to shift to paperless functioning mode in a time bound manner.

"It is one of the priority works of the government. We are writing to all ministers for going paperless. The e-Office will help in speeding up administrative work and result in saving money for the exchequer," he said.

Singh said those doing exemplary work in this project may be given awards for excellence in public administration, which are given annually by the Prime Minister on civil services day.

In his letter, the Minister said one of the agendas of the minimum government-maximum governance is to adopt e-Office in all government functioning for achieving the goal of governance with accountability, transparency and innovation (GATI), which is the sine-qua-non for achieving Prime Minister's Mission of PRAGATI.

The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) is providing financial assistance for implementation of e-Office initiative.

"In order to give encouragement towards implementation of e-Office across central ministries or departments, the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) is also providing financial assistance for implementation of e-Office based realistic estimates duly vetted by National Informatics Centre (NIC).

"It is also finalising a scheme for awarding better performing Ministries and Departments in e-Office," the letter reads.

The DARPG acts as nodal authority for the implementation of e-Office in central ministries with the help of the technical partner NIC.

"It is noteworthy that the Ministry of Panchayati Raj has completely transformed itself to an e-Office platform, while the Ministry of Rural Development is close to achieving it," the letter said, citing works done by the two government departments.