M-Governance – Governance powered by Mobile Phone

- Tejas J Mehta Asst. Professor N R Institute of Business Management (NRIBM), Ahmedabad, India
- Anurag Pal Asst. Professor N R Institute of Business Management (NRIBM), Ahmedabad, India

Abstract:

After the deregulated in 1999 in India, the scenario has as changed a lot. Since then the users have come a long way, in not only getting connected with their society, but it has also empowered the citizens to build a better democracy and a better world. The better and effective government-citizen interaction has resulted into transparency as well as increase in productivity. Through this paper we are analysing how far the Gujarat government has been able to deliver on m-governance and what further steps are needed to be taken to build a strong m-governance which delivers.

Stable economy, increasing habitualness of mobile phone, immense number of handset options at cheaper rates, and ease of service have boost the mobile market in the country. Thanks to this penetration of mobile phones across the country and especially in the state of Gujarat that citizen from each section has access of this wireless device. Gujarat has over 5 Crore active mobile subscriptions meaning almost every citizen has mobile phone access. Out of these total base, 23% subscribers have mobile Internet connectivity which is significantly higher than most of Indian states.

It is important to note that; political parties, corporate sectors and leading brands have started utilizing mobile medium for their promotional as well as transactional communication. Be it extremely rural area or metro city, mobile has become most preferred communication medium in last 5 years. Now, the time has come that government should increase the utilization of this magical device for connecting with citizens to communicate government policies, receive their concerns with appropriate tracking facility, monitor implementation of important policies, and motivating citizens to actively communicate with government. These all are prime factors of good governance which can be addressed effectively with the help of mobile phone meaning providing effective mobile governance in the state.

The cutting edge technologies have empowered mobile solution providers to maintain all the track records online with in-depth reporting, segmentation of users, and real time data update. With help of web and mobile based softwares applications, the data storage and its analysis can very easily in minimal time and efforts.

In this paper, we aim like to highlight certain important areas of governance where mobile can play vital role. The paper intends to emphasize mobile phone utilization to enhance governance and make it even more transparent by increasing participation of citizens, centralizing the information with detailed segmentation, and defining accountability at each of the stage. Though the implementation is tedious, complex, and time consuming; its outcomes can be very much effective for long years.

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