The Indian Government has once again set the gold standard with regard to utilisation of technology in government, and public sector mobile app development, with the announcement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of a competition, to help design a new Office of the Prime Minister Mobile App.
According to NDTV;
NEW DELHI: The government today launched a contest for taking suggestions from the public to develop a mobile application for the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).
The application, which will be developed in association with Google, is likely to be out in two months. The contest aims to seek suggestions from the public regarding the structure and content of the application.
"The whole MyGov programme is designed to have citizen engagement at the widest level. If we engage people, then we get various new suggestions," Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said while launching the contest.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the website MyGov.in to provide a platform to citizens to share their views and opinions on important issues such as clean Ganga or skill development.
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This new announcement follows on from recent news of the launch of a mobile app by the government of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, to help citizens provide feedback about government services.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was elected in 2014, with one of the most decisive mandates in recent Indian history, due to his strong track record of tireless technocratic achievement. During Modi’s term as chief minister of Gujarat, he propelled the state to levels of growth which rivalled Chinese economic growth over the same period, by sweeping away red tape and other bureaucratic obstacles to business. His election as Prime Minister is very much based on the promise that he can replicate his success as leader of Gujarat on a national scale. Early indications are that the people of India will not be disappointed.
The determination by the Indian Government to utilise all available technology must be seen as a serious effort to transform government. The Indian effort, to ensure the best possible outcomes, through the use of mobile app technology, shall in my opinion be seen as an increasingly noteworthy example to all governments, of how to improve public sector delivery of services.
If you have an idea for a mobile app for improving public sector service delivery, please contact me. I have experience working with public sector clients, as well as extensive private sector experience.
App to report poorly maintained road, garbage heaps and other shortfall in the quality of service from local municipality.
App can be Pan India.
User install the App, registers with an email and password. Then the user selects his base city and State. Clicks the picture of the issue, a poorly maintained road, garbage heaps, broken manhole covers on the gutters etch and write some comment. Then he enters the exact location where this picture is taken. The location box should be able to give hints about the actual road or landmark, based on prior issues reported for the same spot.
Local municipality should also have a dedicated user to address the issue and update the progress. The user from the local municipality should be able to receive these issues based on the ‘Location’ selected earlier.
Hi Manit,
Your idea is good – it is a good idea for an entry to the competition.
Here are my suggestions:
1. Many mobile phones these days have GPS, so the report could include a GPS coordinate, to precisely locate the problem being reported. This would also mean less work for the user. In some cases you can even extract GPS from photographs which were created before the mobile app was installed. For example, on iPhone, if Location Services is enabled, every photo you take using the built in camera app contains embedded GPS information, about exactly where the photo was created, and which direction the camera was pointed (North, South, etc).
2. The email registration needs more consideration. A lot of users don’t like supplying their email and password. If users avoid your mobile app, because they don’t want to share their email, this might impact the popularity of the app. So the question is, do you really need the email and password step? If you want to reply to the user who reported the problem, you can use push notification to send a response, and build a simple messaging system into the app. That way you can communicate with the user, with no registration process.
Let me know your thoughts.