PM Modi's addresses e-Governance conference on Twitter, pushes for mobile first strategy

In a first, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today chose to address his remarks to the 18th National Conference on e-Governance via Twitter. The Prime Minister was supposed to attend the conference in person, but since he was unable to do so, he tweeted out his opening remarks. The Prime Minister in his Twitter conference said the central government was committed to the Digital India dream and the e-governance was an essential part of that dream. He added that he was confident that e-governance would make processes simpler and remove obstacles in the path of progress and development in the country. Interestingly he also stressed on the need of mobile Governance and said that, “let us think about ‘mobile first’ and thus give importance to m-Governance (mobile governance). He said that India and India’s government needs to extensively use technology in order to ensure progress and he hoped that the conference would result in new ideas and innovation. Check out the Prime Minister’s tweets below:

As far as e-governance and mobile governance is concerned, central and state governments have taken some concrete steps in 2014 in this direction. We had noted here how an app called the Karnataka MobileOne multi-mode service, service was launched last year which provided services like include payment of utility bills and property tax, booking of railway tickets and filing of income tax returns. In addition to this a web-based portal called Pensioner’s Portal was created for the redressal of pensioners’ grievances. It also provides information to pensioners on retirement and pension-related issues. In Maharashtra a facility allowing people to e-register properties was launched last year as well, where housing society members can register their property ‘online’ from the office of the builder. In 2015, the PM has stressed on the need to look at mobile first, which is an important point to make, given that India is poised to be one of the biggest smartphone markets in the world and will be the second biggest by 2016. As more and more citizen taken to mobiles, m-governance should be the focus of the government.