India advances towards m-governance
To leverage the deeper penetration of mobile phones than the internet among Indian population, the govt. has initiated policy making for m-governance. This is expected to expand the access and reach of public services to all residents, especially in rural areas.
New Delhi: India’s Department of Information Technology (DIT) has initiated the formulation of a new comprehensive policy framework on mobile governance.
This policy framework aims to formulate set of guidelines for utilising the mobile devices in expanding the access to and reach of public services to all residents, especially in rural areas where Internet penetration is still very low.
According to a draft policy published by the DIT seeking comments over it, the rapidly expanding subscriber base of mobile phone users in the country can help in accelerating the use of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) for improving governance and ushering in inclusive development.
In order to provide multi channel and ubiquitous access to government services to the citizens the mobile governance policy aims to build an enabling mobile service delivery infrastructure consisting of a Mobile Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG).
It will be fully integrated with the existing infrastructure created under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), the document posted on the DIT’s website for public comments said.
The DIT expects to develop the gateway by September this year and link projects that have already been digitised, such as filing of income taxes, by December.
There are about 80 million Internet users in the country, while the number of mobile phone subscribers was around 771 million at the end of January The figure was likely to touch one billion marks by 2012.
