Centre earns Rs 776 cr from scrap disposal in 3 years: Union Minister Jitendra Singh
NEW DELHI: The Centre has earned Rs 776 crore disposing of scrap in the three special cleanliness campaigns undertaken by all government offices across the country in the last three years, Union Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh said on Wednesday.
A large chunk of this revenue — Rs 176 crore — has been earned in the last 20 days of the ongoing special cleanliness campaign 3.0, he said.
Addressing a press conference here after reviewing the progress of week three of the special campaign being implemented in all government offices of India, Singh said nearly 86 lakh sq ft of office space has been made available in the three weeks.
He said “swachhata” campaign, inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has generated awareness about the “waste to wealth” concept.
“There is also better mass understanding about the application of innovation and technology for recycling and reuse of waste materials for productive means,” the minister said.
Singh advocated the trinity of artificial intelligence, robotics and drones in order to segregate waste intelligently and for swift disposal of resultant materials.
“Now, if we can have an artificial intelligence-driven module which can segregate the solid and liquid waste, then we have the robot which would carry this and load it onto the drone and then the drone would automatically fly and carry it to the respective destination,” he said.
Underlining that every bit of garbage is worth its return, the minister said the Department of Science and Technology, Technology Development Board and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) recently launched the “recycling on wheels” bus, which can generate wealth from waste at different spots due to its mobility.
Singh said the Dehradun-based Indian Institute of Petroleum (CSIR-IIP) has jointly developed a Repurposed Used Cooking Oil (RUCO) van that collects used cooking oil and converts it into biofuel, according to a personnel ministry statement.
He said the government has earned a total revenue of Rs 776 crore just by disposing of scrap in the three special campaigns undertaken by all government offices across the country in the last three years, the statement quoted the minister as having said.
“So our pace of generating revenue is also increasing. It means now we have learnt the skill of making wealth out of this,” Singh said.
He said, thanks to Prime Minister Modi, the Swachhata campaign has become a mass movement since he initiated the idea during his first Independence Day address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15, 2014.
“In the first year of the Swachhata campaign, more than 4 lakh toilets were constructed, empowering women with Suvidha, Svasthya and Samman’. In the second year, a special campaign focused on the disposal of lakhs of junk files, that freed up precious office space for productive use, and cleaning e-scrap. And the special campaign 3.0 is now focused on wealth generation from waste,” Singh said.
He said, massive participation is being witnessed across ministries and departments and urged them to adopt a saturation approach in the implementation of the campaign to cover all outstation offices/defence establishments and PSUs across the country.
The special campaign 3.0 will conclude on October 31 with the beginning of the evaluation phase in the first week of November, the statement said. (PTI)
