MyGov, a platform founded to promote the active participation of citizens in country’s governance and development has successfully completed its two years
Rahul Kaushik
Ever since our childhood days we would invariably listen in speeches, read in textbooks & newspapers and use it in our oral communications that India is a democratic country. A question would always come to my mind, “ What exactly represents a country as a
democratic country?”. I would like to quote a famous definition of Democracy in Hindi kkªf³f°ff IYf, ªf³f°ff IZY õXfSXf, ªf³f°ff IZY d»fE dIY¹ff ¦f¹ff VffÀf³f WXe »ffZIY°faÂf W`Xll. We truly are citizens of a democratic nation in which Janta choose their representative to govern the nation. But in the current scenario, we can’t restrict role of Janta just to vote; today it is imperative to involve public in governing machinery of the democratic system. Right after a thumping victory in May 2014, Narendra Modi-led NDA Government has been doing tremendous work. But is it just Government standalone who is behind all great initiatives and
creative campaigns? No! in past two years there have been multiple occasions where many new ideas & inputs by local citizens were incorporated & adopted by the government. But how did this happen? How can we, the
citizens of India easily get involved in the policy making of the country? Answer is: MyGov, this government on July 26, 2014 launched a fantastic platform named MyGov which allows normal citizens to get involved in the development exercise of the country.
This July 26 marked 2 years of MyGov – a portal aimed at creating relationship between government and citizens. MyGov engages citizens with government and provides them a
platform to participate in policy
making, policy implementation and then taking their ideas for
improvement of government
programmes. At the launch of MyGov, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid down his vision behind this website – “Let us join this mass movement towards Surajya. Realise the hopes and
aspirations of people and take India to greater heights.” Creating digital democracy, leveraging technology to empower every citizen to contribute ideas and efforts for nation-building, transforming these ideas into action and recognising individual contributions is the basic motive behind MyGov. Till date, there are 35,10,000 users on MyGov platform who have given 33,80,000 suggestions in 589 different discussions on MyGov portal.
MyGov basically deals in 5
different paradigms. DO, DISCUSS, BLOGS, TALK AND POLL.
DO: This section deals with various tasks assigned to users. These may be related to creation of logos for various government schemes, coining taglines, designing government applications and portals etc. The name and logo of PM Jan Dhan Yojna, logo of Swachch Bharat Abhiyan and many other have been designed by MyGov users. The PMO App Contest was held on MyGov where over 50,000 ideas were received. Basic structure of the Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat programme and name of the App of Ministry of Power “Vidyut Pravah” – all came from MyGov.
DISCUSS: The most popular section of MyGov is the Discuss session. All Ministries have been advised to place their draft proposals on MyGov for suggestions from public. For every new topic, a new discussion forum is created. Around 49,000 ideas and
suggestions have been received for New Education Policy. From total of 6 lakh, 1.5 lakh Gram Panchayats have also participated in the NEP
discussions via MyGov portal. More than 70,000 inputs were received for Union & Railway Budget this year. A much debated topic of Net Neutrality received more than 73,000 inputs on MyGov. For 100 smart cities, around 24 lakh inputs have come for Smart Cities – must be biggest ever
engagement exercise!
BLOGS: User can write blogs on the MyGov portal on various issues.
TALKS: 14 Ministers answered to LIVE questions from people on MyGov portal regarding the work done by their ministries in last 2 years.
Polls: In a totally new initiative,
government called upon people to
participate in a survey to judge its
performance on various parameters. A total of 268, 834 citizens participated in the 20 questions survey to rate the work done by government in last 2 years – Must be the biggest sample size ever for any survey!
Transforming India
March 2016 saw a new paradigm added to this revolutionary initiative. PM launched tranformingindia.mygov.in. After taking suggestions from people and giving them place in policies,
government decided to move one step forward and is now presenting a report card of work done in last 2 years. Transforming India portal gives detailed information about all projects and
initiatives that it has taken up in last 2 years. The dashboard at Transformimg India gives real time informationa about major projects of the government.
MyGov has now become an
effective tool in policy formulation process and that is clearly evident from the fact that more than 35 Lac people have been registered on the website. Not just public, but seriousness of this Government towards the platform and the value which the government gives to public opinion Prime Minister’s popular public engagement program invites ideas from public only. Till date, more than 120,000 ideas through open forum and around 350,000 calls have been received for giving their inputs for Man ki baat.
There is a famous saying in English “Democracy is a daring concept – a hope that we’ll be best governed if all of us participate in the act of government, it is meant to be a conversation, a place where the intelligence and local
knowledge of the electoral sums
together to arrive at actions that reflect the participation of the largest possible number of people”. Above definition is true reflection of this wonderful
initiative called MyGov.
(The writer is Delhi based management graduate and writes on Politics, Culture & History)
