Why in News?

• Recently, Saharsa became the first district in Bihar to be declared paperless (E-office) with an aim to end the Great Indian Red Tape.

Highlights

• E-Office is a Mission-Mode project as part of e-Governance Initiatives.
• The E-office initiative goes back to 2009, but the towering piles of paperwork were–and still are–a hurdle too high to cross.
• Idukki in Kerala became paperless in 2012 and Hyderabad in 2016.
• It aims to significantly improve the operational efficiency of Government Ministries and Departments through improvement in the workflow mechanism and office procedure manuals.
• It Is a derisive term for excessive regulation or rigid conformity to formal rules that is considered redundant or bureaucratic and hinders or prevents action or decision-making.
• It Is usually applied to the government but can also be applied to other organisations like corporations.
• It generally includes the filling out of seemingly unnecessary paperwork, obtaining of unnecessary licenses, having multiple people or committees approve a decision and various low-level rules that make conducting one’s affairs slower and/or more difficult.