The Centre on Thursday launched its third cleanliness drive with a focus on remote offices having a larger public interface besides creating wealth through the disposal of waste among other things.

Launching the initiative here, Union Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has transformed the 'swachhata' campaign into a mass movement.

“Same administration, same officials, only the leadership was lacking. The Prime Minister turned the mission on hygiene and cleanliness into a jan-andolan and it was imbibed by the people as a social reform movement. This demonstrated the intent of the government that it will address the fundamental issues facing the common man in a mission mode," Singh said.

He said the special campaign is being launched at a time when the nation is in an upbeat mood following the unprecedented success of the G20 Summit under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India’s space feats of Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya L1 solar mission.

Singh said the Swachhata campaign, the first mass awareness campaign launched by PM Modi on August 15, 2014, has changed the work culture that has been amply demonstrated by the flawless execution and successful hosting of the G20 Summit.

He said over 90 per cent of file work has been made online under the e-office portal and the campaign has ensured productive use of open spaces as some of the departments like the postal have converted "junkyard to courtyard".

The special campaign 3.0 will be preceded by the preparatory phase from September 15 to 30, 2023. During this period, ministries/departments will identify the pendency in selected categories and finalise the campaign sites.

The Government of India has announced special campaign 3.0 from October 2 to 31, 2023 with a focus on cleanliness and reducing pendency in government offices.

“Special campaign 3.0 will focus on field/outstation offices responsible for service delivery or having public interface, in addition to the ministries/departments and their attached/subordinate offices. Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) is the nodal department for implementation of special campaign 3.0," a statement issued by the Personnel Ministry said.

Secretary, DARPG and Department of Pensions and Pensioners’ Welfare V Srinivas; Secretary, Posts, Vineet Pandey; Secretary, Railway Board, Milind K Deuoskar and Arun Singhal, DG, National Archives of India also addressed the function.

Earlier, talking to PTI, Srinivas had said that the success of the 'special campaign 2.0' was institutionalised with all ministries or departments conducting the Swachhata campaign for three hours per week throughout the year.

"Since the conduct of the Swacchata campaign 2.0 in October 2022, the drive has been held at 1.37 lakh sites so far, generating Rs 520 crore from scrap items. As many as 50 lakh files were weeded out, 172 lakh sq ft of office space freed up and 31.35 lakh public grievances cases redressed during the second phase of the cleanliness campaign, the officer had said on Tuesday.

Srinivas had said that by October 31, 2023, a cumulative progress of Rs 1,000 crore can be expected from disposal of office scrap besides another 100 lakh sq ft of office space was likely to be freed up during the month-long third phase of the campaign.

Thursday's launch ceremony was attended by nodal officers of public grievances and appellate authorities in all 84 central government ministries/departments.

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