Mobile Governance

MOBILE GOVERNANCE IN INDIA

 

What is Mobile Governance?

Mobile Governance (m-Governance) is a strategy and its implementation to leverage available wireless and new media technology platforms, mobile phone devices and applications for delivery of public information and services to citizens and business.  

What is Mobile Services Delivery Gateway (MSDG)? 

MSDG is the core infrastructure for enabling the availability of public services through mobile devices. The prime objective of creating the MSDG is to put in place government-wide shared infrastructure and services to enable rapid development, mainstreaming and deployment of m-Governance services. It will enhance interoperability across various public services as well as reduce the total cost of operation of m-Governance services by providing a common pool of resources aggregating the demand for communication and e-Governance services, and act as a platform for various Government Departments and Agencies to test, rapidly deploy, and easily maintain m-Governance services across the country.  

What is the purpose of setting up the MSDG?  

The purpose of setting up the MSDG is to provide a one stop ecosystem for enabling the delivery of various electronic government services through mobile devices in an efficient manner with minimum effort for the participating Government Departments and Agencies. MSDG will also help in enhancing the interoperability of mobile-based services among various Government Departments and reduce the total cost of development and deployment of applications for m-Governance services. 

What are the functions of MSDG?  

MSDG will have facilitates such as hardware and software to test and deploy the m-Governance applications. It will support the delivery of both voice and data services and content in a network and device independent manner to the extent possible and feasible. MSDG is proposed to be used as a shared infrastructure by the Central and State Government Departments and Agencies at nominal costs for delivering public services through mobile devices.  

What are the Delivery Channels?  

MSDG will support the following delivery channels for development and deployment of mobile-based applications for Government services. 

-SMS (Short Message Service)

-IVR (Interactive Voice Response)

-WAP (Wireless Application Protocol)

-U S S D ( Unstructured Supplementary Service Data)

-CBC (Cell Broadcast)

-SIM Toolkit  (STK)/Dynamic STK, 3G-Video

-Others (WiFi/ WLan)

 

The Department of Information and Technology (DIT) outlined its objective to “make all government services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets, and ensure efficiency, transparency, and reliability of such services at affordable costs to realise the basic needs of the common man”. 

Besides, the plan is for the websites of all government departments and agencies to be made mobile-compliant; open standards will be adopted for mobile applications to ensure the interoperability of applications across various operating systems, and uniform pre-designated numbers shall be used for mobile-based services to ensure convenience. It will be One Web Approach enabled. This implies that all Government Web sites should be compliant with mobile devices to enable users of such devices to access the same information and services as available.  

What steps will DIT take to promote the m-Governance initiative?

 

DIT, or any of its designated agencies will undertake awareness creation and capacity building exercises for according greater visibility to the Mobile Governance initiative amongst stakeholders and potential beneficiaries across Government, Industry, and Civil Society.