What is junk worth? For India, it was worth Rs 776 cr in 3 years

According to Union Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh, the Centre has made Rs 776 crore by getting rid of scrap during the three special cleanliness campaigns that all government offices nationwide have run over the past three years.

The last 20 days of the current special cleanliness programme 3.0 have brought in a large portion of this money, or Rs 176 crore, he said.

After assessing the third week of the special campaign being conducted in all Indian government offices, Singh spoke at a news conference here and stated that in only three weeks, around 86 lakh square feet of office space have been made accessible.

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 promoted the use of robotics, drones, and artificial intelligence to intelligently separate waste and dispose of the resulting materials quickly.

“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.

The minister emphasised that every bit of trash is worth its return and mentioned the recent launch of the “recycling on wheels” bus by the Department of Science and Technology, Technology Development Board, and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Because of its mobility, the bus can generate wealth from waste at various locations.

According to a personnel ministry release, Singh stated that the Indian Institute of Petroleum (CSIR-IIP) in Dehradun has collaborated to create a Repurposed Used Cooking Oil (RUCO) van that gathers spent cooking oil and turns it into biofuel.

In the previous three years, all government offices nationwide have carried out three special campaigns that have brought in a total of Rs 776 crore in revenue for the government, he claimed. 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 claimed that since Prime Minister Modi introduced the notion during his maiden Independence Day speech from the Red Fort ramparts on August 15, 2014, the Swachhata campaign has grown into a significant social movement.

“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.

The speaker observed widespread involvement across ministries and departments, and encouraged them to take a saturating approach to the campaign’s execution, encompassing all outstation offices, defence establishments, and PSUs nationwide.

According to the announcement, the special campaign 3.0 will end on October 31 and the evaluation phase will start the first week of November.

(With agency inputs)