Use of Social Media by Indian Government Departments

The concept of Governance has changed a lot after the formation of new Government under the leadership of Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi. Now a lot of Government departments are using social media for educating citizens about implementation of new policies as well as changes in the earlier policies. A large number of followers on Facebook and twitter accounts shows the changing behavior of Indians. The smartphone users of about 500 million population is very active, energetic and watching all the steps taken by Government. The Ministry of External Affairs twitter account @IndianDiplomacy has more than 453K followers. The national Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog which serves as a Think Tank of the Government, has a twitter handle @NITIAayog with 680K followers.  Indian Railways, popularly known as RailMinIndia has also started using Social Media It has more than 500K followers on its twitter handle and 460K comments on Facebook. The comments on Facebook and tweets on twitter have been providing a lot of feedback to Indian Railways for improving efficiency and effectiveness. At the same time, public is getting a lot of operational information from Indian Railways, useful for their travel plan.

The prime Minister of India, Mr Narendra Modi has been using social media accounts of Facebook, twitter, You Tube and Google+ for making aware about the initiatives taken to improve the life of Indians like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. He is also using social media to make aware about achievements of Government, to educate the people about the Government programs and to share his feelings about events and incidents taken place in India and outside India. The followers count on these accounts is more than 25 million in total.

This shows that Indian Government has now become more responsive. The Government is getting the pulse of Indians through social media in respect of government policies.