The Department of Information Technology (DIT) has published a draft policy on mobile governance that aims to enable government departments to provide services, including payment of utility bills and filing of tax returns from mobile phones. A platform called Mobile Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG) will be set up, on which all ministries and departments will be able to start their services, according to the document posted on the department’s website for public comments.
The DIT expects to develop the gateway by September this year and link projects that have already been digitised, such as filing of income taxes, by December.
There are about 80 million Internet users in the country, while the number of mobile phone subscribers was around 771 million at the end of January, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
