Maharashtra Govt switches over to ‘mobile governance’


By Kartik Lokhande 

If one thought that e-governance is the ‘in’ thing, one may be proved wrong by faster introduction of technology in governance. Maharashtra Government has decided to take a step further and switch over to ‘mobile governance’ or ‘m-governance’. It has prepared a framework for ‘m-governance’ and has also asked various departments to develop and implement citizen-centric mobile phone applications.
Rajesh Aggarwal, Principal Secretary (Information Technology), has issued a circular in this regard to all Additional Chief Secretaries, Principal Secretaries, Secretaries of various departments, all Divisional Commissioners and all District Collectors, Chief Executive Officers of all Zilla Parishads, Municipal Commissioners, and the authorities of National Informatics Centre and MahaOnline in this regard. In the letter dated July 2, 2014, Aggarwal has stated that the State Government has decided to deliver citizen-centric services through mobile devices. The decision has been taken considering the increased penetration of mobile user base in rural and urban areas.
As per the framework prepared for ‘mobile governance’, all the Government websites are expected to be mobile compliant using ‘One Web’ approach, which means making the same information and services available to users irrespective of the devices or the browser they are using. The said approach is being taken to ensure that websites work on smaller screen size smartphones or tablets. The ‘m-governance’ envisions making it ‘future-proof’ for screen sizes not imagined today.
Other features of the ‘m-governance’ policy include inter-operability of applications across various operating systems and devices, adoption of open standards for mobile applications, use of single pre-designated numbers for mobile-based services, use of SMS gateways to disseminate information related to Government Resolutions, circulars, office orders etc. The delivery channels like SMS gateway will be provided by Department of Information Technology in collaboration with MahaOnline Limited.
Already, Maharashtra Government has launched an online apps store https://apps.mgov.gov.in/ through which one can download the mobile applications related to Government Resolutions, audit and survey, ‘Mahanews’ etc. 

(Published on July 14, 2014) 

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