Other States want to emulate Bengaluru’s digital initiative, says Siddaramaiah

BENGALURU: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday said the Centre as well as many states have approached his state seeking its help to replicate its ‘Mobile One’ digital initiative to improve governance.

“Karnataka is the first State in India to use mobile to directly deliver important services to its citizens,” he said after inaugurating a two-day regional conference on “Minimum Government- Maximum Governance, in Bengaluru.

While Karnataka has a population of 65 million people, about 54 million people use mobile phones which makes it easy to reach citizens through the Mobile One, he said.

“Mobile-One is doing one lakh hits or downloads every day and number of transactions are also picking up,” the CM said, and added that a senior United Nations team that visited Karnataka recently showcased the Mobile One at its headquarters in New York.

The Mobile One model, Siddaramaiah said, can extend to citizen audit of public works or of rural asset creation programs or almost any service that entails a G2C (Government to Consumer) or a G2B (Government to Business) engagement.

Use of integrated digital media, would also allow government to elicit public opinion on a continuous basis, something any government should do since public opinion is created every single minute whether or not government is glued into it, he said.

Karnataka’s increased deployment of technology in tax administration has helped traders and eliminated about 1.5 lakh visits by traders every day to government offices, the CM said.