Govt in rush to start flagship mobile app by Dec

UMANG to be available in 12 Indian languages; to offer all govt services

The Ministry of Telecom and Information Technology is working overtime to make the government’s flagship mobile application, UMANG, a reality by December this year.

UMANG (unified mobile app for new age governance) would be available in 12 Indian languages, in addition to English.

Senior officials of the ministry said it would be the defining app in the Digital India initiative and the main e-governance driver for the government.

SERVICES TO BE AVAILABLE ON UMANG

• CBSE/State boards: Details related to exams, curriculum, results
   
• E-municipality: Grievance redressal, property tax filing and other facilities estimates
   
• IRCTC: Bookings and other services related to Railways
   
• Utility bills: Payment of electricity and water bills
   
• Commercial tax: Details on filing taxes for traders and retailers
   
• e-Court: Court case details

It would be a window to access almost all sorts of government services, including national scholarships, women's safety, health care applications, e-District and Passport Seva.

“We are going to launch a common mobile app which would give services of the central government, state governments and the local bodies,” said Ravi Shankar Prasad, telecom and IT minister. “People will be able to scan thousands of government services. We would start it in December with national student scholarships, women's safety and health care programmes.”

A senior IT ministry official said: “A huge team of experts — including software and app developers and government officials — are working on the app. We are trying to ensure the app does not require a lot of space so that people stick to it after downloading (it on their mobile phones). This could be an effective gateway to all government services. It might be Aadhaar-linked and will have all the details of the user.”

The government has been pushing its apps. Till now, 768 apps in various regional languages have been launched by the government in association with the units of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing across the country.

According to the Department of Electronics and Information and Technology officials, the Prime Minister’s Office has given them standing orders to develop and promote apps for specific purposes, as smartphone penetration in urban and rural areas has drastically increased.

Of the 905 million smartphone users in India, 70 million are from rural areas..

Most of these apps have been developed in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati and various other regional languages.