Penalty for urinating in open, spitting in govt offices

New Delhi, May 25: Urinating in open and spitting on the government office premises will now attract a penalty as the Centre has issued a new Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for 'Swachh Bharat Mission' to ensure a clean, hygienic and healthy work environment.

Also, littering and non-collection of construction and demolition waste by the contractor will also attract the penalty.

These SOPs have been shared with all central government ministries recently asking them to follow the new procedures to ensure complete sanitation in office premises, senior government officials said.

It mandates every department to form a sanitation committee under the chairmanship of relevant Joint Secretary looking after the charge of administration to monitor compliance to the SOP.

The SOP casts an obligation on authority concerned to "impose penalty on defaulters for littering, spitting and open urinating" besides conducting surprise inspections of the office premises to ensure a clean, hygienic and healthy work environment.

"If contractors have the obligation to collect the construction and demolition waste, it should be done immediately after all work is finished. Failure to do so will attract penalty," says the SOPs, sent to secretaries of all central government ministries.

The central government departments have been asked to carry out self-assessment and ratings for the buildings on overall sanitation infrastructure by measuring their effort in removing paan and gutkha stains, providing dustbins and required number of urinals to meet the cleanliness needs.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in October 2014 launched the Swachh Bharat Mission with an aim to make the country absolutely clean by October 2, 2019.

All government departments have been asked to ensure collection of waste, rubbish and debris inside and outside the building and garden or open spaces and dispose as per set frequency, the SOP said.

An intensive cleaning of the entire office premises should be carried out at least once in two months which should also involve participation of all officials and staff (through Shramdaan) for disposal of redundant or unused hardware, furniture which can be added to inventory and re-allocated as per demand, it said. "Weeding and recording of files should be resorted to at least once in six months.

The records in the record room should be reviewed once a year and destroyed as per guidelines. This would ensure that constant space is created for keeping more recorded files.

If necessary extra manpower for this purpose should be resorted to," the SOP said. The purpose of this SOP is to improve current cleanliness levels in the government of India offices. The primary way to achieve cleanliness is through inculcating good sanitation and hygiene practices in employees and visitors, it said.

PTI