In a milestone that could well prove to be a watershed, smartphones outsold PCs globally in the last quarter of 2010. This is a trend that will undoubtedly be replicated in India as well, given the robust growth in the mobile market. With over 700 million + mobile subscribers in the country, the mobile is the first connectivity device to become truly ubiquitous in India. Not surprisingly then, that Governments are keen to ride the wave to reach out more effectively to citizens.

What is m-Governance?

M-Governance involves the use of various mobile technology services, devices and applications to deliver Government services to citizens. When implemented appropriately and supported by a committed Government, m-governance has various benefits:

• Citizens are able to access government services on the go and receive prompt feedback.
• Governments are able to bring accountability into their operations.

One of the front runners here is the Government of Kerala which, over the past two years, has progressively embraced mobile governance projects in an effort to introduce transparency in operations and provide citizen-centric services.

The Initiative kicked off in late 2009 when the government of Kerala signed a contract with MobME to introduce a number of m-governance projects in the state. MobME is a provider of Mobile Value Added Services and Core Networks Solutions to Telecom Operators and Governments. “The basic idea was to have 20 pilot projects [in Kerala] in the first eight months,” said Lishoy Bhaskar, VP Enterprise Business, MobME.

The company spent the first four months on a confidence-building exercise. “It was initially hard to make people believe in the kind of change that mobile communication can bring,” Bhaskar said. The team also spent time looking at e-governance projects implemented in the state in the past. “We tried to use the same resources and supplement e-governance with mobility solutions over multiple platforms,” he said. Another challenge was to get the mobile operators in the state on the same page. MobMe moved quickly to block the SMS short code 537252 (K-E-R-A-L-A on non qwerty keypad) across all providers. This number is now exclusively reserved for services provided by the Kerala government.

How the service works

The Government has assigned unique ‘keywords’ to each m-governance service implemented. Pre-defined messages are used to trigger government actions. For example, if a woman in Kerala wants to raise a complaint about harassment at work or any issue relating to the Women’s Commission, she can use a specific message template to air her grievance. All she has to do is send a text to 537252 with the keyword ‘Vanitha’ followed by the complaint. The message is then automatically directed to the Women’s Commission for further processing.

Kerala’s Department of Agriculture initiated a project where farmers could receive timely information on seed prices, fertilizers and more by requesting information using specific keywords. “We received 3,000 to 4,000 registrations per day in the first week,” Bhaskar recalled.

Building accountability

Another project, E-District, has helped citizens avoid long queues at government offices. “We have integrated about 25 services under a single project called E-District,” said Bhaskar. For instance, if you want to arrange a marriage certificate, you would normally go to a government office, fill in details on a form and visit the center about four more times before your work is complete, he said. With E-District, you only need to go once or even fill the form online, said Bhaskar, adding, that the applicant would receive a message from the department on application status within a specified time.  “The whole idea is save time and cut down the number of visits,” he said. In certain projects, if a particular government functionary does not respond within the allotted time to any complaint, the issue is then automatically escalated to a superior officer. This brings about government accountability.

A good example here is the m-governance project implemented for the Commercial Taxes Department in Kerala. When drivers face problems at check posts, they can call a computerized call center and record their complaint. The interactive voice response system is used. Once the call is completed, the driver immediately receives a complaint registration number while the voice clip is sent to an officer. If it has not been checked after a certain period of time, a higher authority is alerted. “We are planning to bring in a lot of transparency. 1.7 lakh traders have registered with the department,” Bhaskar said.

MobME is expanding its service offering in Kerala – “We have 40 departments that have gone live in Kerala, and we are in the process of integrating about 25 more. We are targeting 100 different services for different departments to go live by June.”

Spurred by the success of m-governance projects in Kerala, other states are following suit. Nagaland recently signed a contract with MobME. Over the last four months, the company has also been working with the government of Goa. The market for mobile governance initiatives in India is huge, pointed out Bhasker – “At present, in Kerala, there are 20 million mobile users. In the country, there are about 700 million mobile users and 35 million landline connections. E-governance was the first building block that the government took up. We believe that mobile [governance] will be the single biggest device for the government to reach out to citizens – anywhere, anytime”

Contributed by Shweta Satyan, Prayag Consulting, for the NASSCOM EMERGE newsletter.

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