New Delhi: The Mines and the Civil Aviation Ministries are among nine government organisations awarded Tuesday for promoting paper-free working, according to an official statement.

Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh gave letters of appreciation to these government departments at a function held here.

The Department of Heavy Industry, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the Department of Expenditure, the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Ministry of Mines, the NITI Aayog, the Inter-State Council Secretariat and the Department of Health Research were awarded for achieving the target of e-office (or computerisation of office related file works).

The e-office solution enables core operations of the government at all levels to be performed in a virtual 'paper less' environment. 

Under the initiatives, transaction of government business, instead of being done in physical files, is carried out on electronic files wherein all the receipts and files are moved in an electronic mode at the click of a button.

"The government intends to make all its ministries/departments paper-free in the near future," Singh said.

Giving details of the work done under the e-office, the minister said the number of active e-files has increased from 7,848 in 2016 to 10,44,935 in January 2019.

As many as 75 ministries/departments are now actively using the e-office platform.

"With the use of e-office, red-tapism will become obsolete and government functioning will further improve," the minister said.

(With inputs from PTI)