From govt benefits to registering complaints, one-stop digital platform required to address women's needs

What if India could use its prowess in data and technology and its many policies and support structures targeted towards women and create one tech-enabled network? This is the subject of this essay and the reason I have been thinking about this has a bit of historical background. About a decade ago, a friend and I came up with the idea of creating India’s first women’s safety mobile app called Fightback which we built with the help of a team from Tech Mahindra. At that time, we even crowdsourced and mapped the 100 places in the city of Delhi which needed more attention to make them safer for women. We were called to send our inputs to the Delhi police, and we did and after due further study, better security measures including lighting did come in many of those places. But as far as the app was concerned, we were way ahead of our times, but the time is absolutely right at this moment. And one could — and should — look at much more than just safety. What I am suggesting is a one-stop digital platform which is the hub for women to access what they need the most. What are those things? First, certainly, are easiest possible access to all government benefits, including information and ability to reserve any space, post or seat that has been secured by law for women. Let’s take an example — could it be possible that this network or platform or app, called, maybe, the Nari App, or the Gargi or Maitreyi App (after the famed woman philosophers of ancient India), is able to help women very easily check their accounts for any monetary benefit transfers, and book seats on buses and trains on coaches reserved for women? Now, even more ambitiously, could it help them seamlessly know when reserved coaches for women have available seats in trains, buses, and even metro rail trains? Could it become a job portal for women for all kinds of roles? A mentoring platform? A place which prioritises women-led start-ups hiring women employees? A platform like this could help monitor everything from direct benefit transfers to women to spreading the word about better menstrual hygiene. It could be the place for the dissemination of information for reproductive health and up-to-date information on where and how to collect support given by the government to new mothers and their children. Such a network and a platform could create a virtuous cycle of women logging in to access what is due to them, and a place to register complaints and grievances — the ideal sort of ‘feedback loop’ using real-time data as envisaged by the Economic Survey this year. The time has come to create this kind of network or digital platform. Women voters across the country have become one of the most important demographic pillars upholding our democratic process. Our start-up ecosystem is bustling with the energy of leadership for women. More women are participating in our security and defence apparatus than ever. Such an app or platform or digital network would allow us the needs and issues faced by women in our country with deeper, richer data and thus we would be able to address those needs in far more efficient and effective ways. We need to better understand how labour markets for women operate differently than men, we need to understand issues of women’s health including mental health and not have such topics overshadowed by vocal men citing their concerns. We need to create a space where the network effect of women interacting with one another could gather pace and generate its own unique virtues. There are many such small efforts happening across the country but what I am proposing is a ‘mothership’, a platform or app that brings all the basics together and allows information, security, benefits, and information dissemination all to happen under one digital roof so to speak. Of course, such a digital tool could be used as an emergency app too — as we had envisioned with Fightback in 2011 — designed to ensure instant response from security services and family members if any woman faces any crime-related threat. This is not difficult to implement — we have both the tools and the public policy programmes and the data to build such a Nari platform or app. We should. It is time. The writer is a multiple award-winning historian and author. The views expressed are personal. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.