Objective:
The awareness of citizens of this country is very low with regard to government schemes. Most of the times we do not know what are the schemes we are entitled to, from where should we avail them, how to be the rightful beneficiaries of them, what are the procedures to be followed and so on.
Since presently, the mobile penetration is very high in India, it would be the right time to have a mobile application which will provide one stop solution to know about all the schemes applicable to an individual and hence empower the citizens as well as curb corruption.
Contents of the app:
- Provisions to enter the age, gender, caste, profession, annual income, Aadhaar number, place of residence (area, taluka, district and state). Based on these information, the app should be able to provide the list of all government schemes and other benefits applicable to that individual.
- Along with the list, the app should also give information about the scheme in brief, what is the procedure to avail that scheme, where can an individual get it done, what are the documents to be submitted and if one can get it done online then the website link.
- For women, there should be an additional provision to select their marital status so that the app can provide about the special benefits available for adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating mothers, single women, widows and women in general.
- Option to mention the status – whether differently abled or not.
- Provision for checking the availability of scheme to another individual too from the same phone.
Requirements of the app:
- The construction of this app will definitely need an extensive research of all the government schemes and the software should be capable of filtering the schemes according to the information provided by the user.
- The schemes will have to be classified like –
Health schemes;
Insurance;
Food security;
Social security;
Citizenry rights like voter id, passport, Aadhaar card, National population register;
Other services like telephone, water, electricity and LPG services;
Education schemes – primary, secondary, tertiary, adult education as well as vocational education,
Schemes that help entrepreneurship – venture capital fund, national skill development corporation;
Schemes for youth – skill enhancement programs, National rural livelihood mission, self help groups and so on.
Future perspective:
- In course of time, the app can also provide the information about the city specific or area specific address, phone number of the office to be contacted.
- Initially, the app will only give information but not service as such. In future, the same app can be upgraded to give services and can be made a part of full-fledged govt’s m-governance initiative. Ex: Booking appointment at Passport Seva Kendra can be made available through the same app.
- The utility of the app can be enhanced by extending it to all major languages (State official languages) of India so that it can be utilised by every common individual of this country.
- State specific schemes can also be included.
Concluding remarks:
- This would be a people friendly app.
- It will also help in curbing corruption as the people will be aware of the procedure to avail the scheme, the documents to be submitted and so on. Therefore, the bureaucrats cannot delay in providing the benefits of the scheme to the rightful beneficiary.
- Citizen charter can also be included as a part of it so that the individual will be aware about the time required for the completion of the whole process.
- The app can have the list of fundamental duties of the citizens (as supplementary so that the individual also becomes aware of it).
Akshara Damle
