In a
democracy, citizen participation is one of the key components of decision
making process. Indian government has last year launched an innovative platform
named MyGov (available at http://mygov.in/ ) to encourage
citizens' engagement in decision making by the Government. This initiative is
an opportunity for citizens and well-wishers from across the world to share
their views on key issues. This platform empowers the citizens of India to
contribute towards Good-governance.
There
are multiple theme-based discussions on MyGov where a wide range of people can
share their thoughts and ideas. Further, any idea shared by a contributor will
also be discussed on these discussion forums, allowing constructive feedback
and interaction among participants. MyGov aims to establish a link between
Government and Citizens towards meeting the goal of good governance in the
country. For those who wish to go beyond discussions and wish to contribute on
the ground, MyGov offers several avenues to do so. Citizens can volunteer for
various tasks and submit their entries. These tasks would then be reviewed by
other members and experts. Once approved, these tasks can be shared by those
who complete the task and by other members on MyGov platform. Every approved
task would earn credit points for completing the task.
Groups
and creative corners are an important part of MyGov. The platform has been
divided into various groups like Clean Ganga, Green India, Job Creation, Girl
Child Education, Skill Development, Digital India, Swachh Bharat (Clean India)
etc. Each group consists of online and onground tasks that can be taken up by
the contributors. The objective of each group is to bring about a qualitative
change in that sphere through people's participation.
MyGov has
integrated social media in its launched its version 2.0 with newer features
such as hashtags, polls, interactive discussion forums and social media account
integration.
MyGov
hosts a series of competitions to engage the citizens as part of pressing
issues in the country in addition to inviting suggestions for its upcoming
activities and also, MyGov will make extensive use of analytics and data mining
tools.
The
size of members in this portal has been increasing and is now over 8 lakh
members. MyGov has grown as an important medium for the government to interact
directly with citizens. The government's recently launched Financial Inclusion
program "Jan Dhan Yojana" was named through a contest on the MyGov
portal.
MyGov is a very important initiative of the Government of India for participative Governance. I was also associated with MyGov for my Department. Since the initiative is new and the Government departments are typically not accustomed to use of such platforms, the true potential of MyGov is yet to be exploited.
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