The second Administrative Reforms Commission in its 4th Report titled ‘Ethics in Governance’ and 12th Report titled ‘Citizen Centric Governance’ had stressed on the need for simplification of Government procedures.  As a part of simplification, the State Government of Punjab in the year 2009-10 decided to do away with the practice of submitting of affidavits and also allowing of self-attestation of copies of certificates for small level Government jobs.  However, this decision did not have any bearing on the requirement of submission of affidavits in the Courts as per the law. This initiative of State Government of Punjab had won the Prime Minister’s Civil Services Award.  As the part of replication of the aforesaid initiative, the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances has been requesting on a regular basis the Central Ministries/ Departments and the State/UT Governments to adopt the similar procedure. This is a continuous process. 
 
This was stated by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply to a question by Shri Mahesh Poddar in the Rajya Sabha told.-WTN