Sibal, Chidambaram still Union ministers in Centre's mobile app

The faux pas on the appStore called Mobile Seva has been attributed to lack of a single decision making body

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government will shortly be completing 30 days in office. The administrative machinery, from the ministers to the bureaucrats, dons a new look. However, according to Directory of Ministries, one of the most popular applications hosted on the government's appStore, P Chidambaram is still the minister for finance.

The appStore, brainchild of and maintained by the department of electronics and information technology, has not even spared its own. According to information on the application, Kapil Sibal continues to head the ministry. J Satyanarayana, who retired in April, is still secretary for the department. And, this has managed to slip past a government headed by Narendra Modi, considered one of most technology savvy politicians.

This comes even as the government is set to take the appStore meant for enhancing citizen services to Google's popular android platform, for wider access.

Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief of GreyHound Research, attributes the faux pas to lack of a single decision making body. "There are multiple arms in the department which are functioning in silos," he said. The country needs a chief information officer who can create an overarching technology strategy for India, he added.

Gogia says several digitisation projects were started with much fanfare but could not reach their desired end due to lack of interface between various government arms.

The government under Modi has been moving fast to update information across all state-owned portals about the new regime and its initiatives. In fact, social media has been made the prime tool for sharing updates and all ministries are being encouraged to adopt it.

Interestingly, 'Directory of Ministries' is one of the most popular applications on the store, and features in the top-five most downloaded applications. The store contains a little over 300 apps that primarily cater to government's services for citizens.

An application which serves as a guide for citizens seeking access under the Right to Information (RTI), a flagship law of the previous government, is the most popular on the app store. Those giving information about polling stations, consignments through India Post and Aadhaar enrolment status are also high on the rankings.

The appStore called Mobile Seva was launched in 2012 as the government sought to step up efforts over new computing platforms such as mobile. Once the apps are on dedicated application stores such as Android, the usage by citizens is expected to go up manifold. Currently, awareness about these apps is very low, said an official.

"We are adding more applications and are now working on technology which will make it platform-agnostic, so that it works on Microsoft's Windows as well as on Apple's iOS," the official said.

In response to a questionnaire by Business Standard, the department said in an email, "All the applications on the Mobile Seva Appstore are constantly being updated and revised apps are being hosted. There is a team in place at CDAC for updating the apps and ensuring that the information and services provided to the users are uptodate. This process is being followed for all the live apps."

Gogia of GreyHound Research said the first thing the government needed to do was to make the applications cross-platform. "The lineages need to go off." There are several interesting applications such as the RTI one which are in the store and much more could be achieved through it, only if government figures out a way to harness their potential, he said.