E-Paper
Paperless secretariat: Lax depts create speed-breaker on e-office way
Yogi Adityanath government appears to be inching closer to a paperless secretariat, albeit in a phased manner in Uttar Pradesh.
Yogi Adityanath government appears to be inching closer to a paperless secretariat, albeit in a phased manner in Uttar Pradesh.
Though a considerable progress has been made with many departments using the e-office system, a number of departments are lax and moving at a slower pace and the secretariat staff can still be seen carrying conventional paper files from one office to the other in different secretariat buildings.
As a major chunk of government business is still being carried out using the conventional paper files, officers and ministers often carry the bundles of files in large boxes for quick disposal at their residence or on a holiday. No new files are being opened without using the e-office system, but the work to scan the old ones is expedited to ensure that the files only move online in the secretariat by March 31, 2020.
“Yes, no new files are being opened without using the e-office system since May 7, 2018. What you see in these boxes are either old files or the ones having documents of old files that have not been scanned and uploaded online. We have begun the process of scanning all the old files on March 29, 2019. We hope the scanning work in 60 to 65 departments will be complete by July 31, 2019. We hope to completely switch over to the e-office system by the end of this financial year on March 31, 2020,” said additional chief secretary secretariat administration department Mahesh Chandra Gupta.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath also appears concerned about implementing the e-office system. He had recently sent letters to the officers of different departments asking them to switch over to the e-office system.
However, a close scrutiny of the functioning of the state government’s 94 departments indicates that all of them are gradually switching over to the e-office system. In total, these departments opened 44,437 files from May 7, 2018 to May 31, 2019. Out of them only 28,526 files were opened electronically using the e-office system while the remaining 15,911 files were opened using the conventional system.
Among the departments that have completely switched over to opening files using the e-office include are civil aviation, sports, election, IT and electronics, disabled empowerment and backward classes welfare departments. Administrative reforms, prisons, urban development and higher education departments need to do lot more to completely switch over to the e-office system.
Chief minister had made the announcement to make the state secretariat paperless in the state assembly in March 2018. Additional computers and scanners etc. were thereafter installed in different departments. A training programme was also organised for the staff, officers and the ministers. This came after 20 out of the 94 departments, including the office of chief minister had begun switching over to the e-office system in 2017. Yet the chief minister’s office, the state home department and the public works departments etc. have not been able to completely switch over to the e-office system.
Out of 6,453 new files opened by the chief minister’s office during the same period, only 3,991 were opened using the e-office system while 2,462 (62 percent) were opened conventionally. The state home department used e-office system to open 3,141 of 5,265 files while 2,124 files (60 percent) were opened conventionally. The public works department used the e-office system to open 1,074 out of 1,852 files while 778 were opened conventionally.
If the state government’s own data is to be believed the number of government files get doubled in a period of two to three years. A tree is cut to get 12,500 office papers and opening more conventional files means use of more paper every day.
