Centre bans physical printing of CTBs, diaries, calendars
*Step to check unfruitful expenditure by deptts every year
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Sept 4: At a time when the Government of Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory was busy in release of one after another Coffee Table Books (CTB), the Union Finance Ministry has imposed ban on this activity as well as printing of wall calendars, desktop calendars, diaries and festival greeting cards as a part of ‘Go Green and Go Digital Initiative’ and to bring down the ‘unfruitful’ expenditure.
As a sequel to this decision of the Union Finance Ministry, the Administrative Secretary of the Information Department of J&K has issued instructions to all the officers to stop printing of Coffee Table Books of their respective departments forthwith.
In the month of May this year, the Government of J&K Union Territory decided to come up with several Coffee Table Books to highlight the achievements in different fields. Vide Government Order No.607-JK(GAD) dated May 29, 2020, even a Core Group headed by Director Information was constituted for the purpose.
Thereafter, vide separate orders several KAS officers were placed at the disposal of Director Information to assist the Core Group in preparation of Coffee Table Books. Since last month the Government was coming up with one after another Coffee Table Book depicting the sector-wise and department-wise achievements of the administration ever since the creation of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
While Coffee Table Books of several departments have already been released, the other departments, autonomous bodies and Corporations were in the process of formulating the same for release in near future. As per the rough estimates, more than 8000 copies of already released Coffee Table Books have already been printed by the concerned departments through private printers.
“This is notwithstanding the fact that several officers of those departments which have already come up with the Coffee Table Books and which are in the process of compilation were not convinced with the idea of the Government but had no other option but to follow the instructions”, official sources told EXCELSIOR.
Now, the spree of Coffee Table Books release has come to the grinding halt as the Department of Expenditure, Union Ministry of Finance has come up with a formal communication whereby ban has been imposed on printing of Coffee Table Books as per the Government of India’s ‘Go Green and Go Digital Initiative’ and to bring down the ‘unfruitful’ expenditure.
“As the world is increasingly moving towards adopting digital force multipliers for productivity and given the fact that using technological innovations for planning, scheduling and forecasting is known to be economical, efficient and effective, the Government of India has decided that there will be no further activities towards printing wall calendars, desktop calendars, diaries, festival greeting cards and similar materials by all the Ministries, departments, autonomous bodies and other organs of the Government”, reads the order issued by Joint Secretary in the Department of Expenditure of Union Ministry of Finance.
The order further states: “All such activities including materials which were earlier printed in physical format shall be done digitally online. Moreover, the printing of Coffee Table Books is also banned and appropriate use of e-books is encouraged. Therefore all the concerned are directed to make efforts to adopt innovative means to use digital or online method for such activities”.
Following this order, the Administrative Secretary of Department of Information of J&K Union Territory has asked all the officers to stop printing of Coffee Table Books of their respective departments forthwith.
With this, several departments, corporations and autonomous bodies of J&K UT, which were all set to release their respective Coffee Table Books in the coming days, will not be able to do so, sources said.
“The order of the Union Finance Ministry aimed at pushing digitalisation and austerity measures as well as adoption of eco-friendly ways assumes much importance for the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir in the light of the fact that majority of the departments, corporations and autonomous bodies of J&K spend huge amount every year for publishing of wall calendars, desk-top calendars, diaries etc”, they further said.
They said, “innovative digital and online solutions will achieve the same result as physical calendars or diaries are”, adding “the explicit order of the Union Finance Ministry would stop the practice of distributing diaries and calendars by Government departments, public sector banks and state-run companies before the beginning of every new calendar year”.
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