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.
Prasad said the Modi-led government is using
crowd sourcing model to get suggestions from the general public and later
incorporating them while forming government policies. He said the Railway
and the Union budgets used suggestions given by public including proposal
of bio toilets, online payment facility for food, ideal railway station by
involvement of MPs in railways, gold monetisation and sovereign bonds schemes
and the need for a law to tackle benami property among others.
“Through crowd sourcing, whatever suggestions
people gave regarding the Budget, have been included into railway as well as
the general Budget… So you can see our government not only engages people but
also acts on the feedback received from crowd sourcing,” Prasad said. He
further said that this shows extraordinary commitment of the government to use
social media for social good.
Regarding the PMO’s application, Google India
MD Rajan Anandan said the app will be made in India by best developers of the
country. He said the app is likely to be developed in two months and it will be
a “Made in India and Made for India.”
PTI
