MeitY Ties with MapmyIndia To Enable Map Services in UMANG App

The service will enable people to find government facilities like Mandis, Blood Banks etc. near their location

With the newly launched map service people can easily navigate through visual and voice directions

Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) has taken various initiatives in the recent past to ease the lives of citizens by facilitating online delivery of Government services. To further enhance the initiatives of Digital India Programme, and keeping in view the theme of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’, MeitY has enabled map services in “UMANG App '' through an MOU with MapmyIndia.

As a result of integration of UMANG with MapmyIndia Maps, citizens will be able to find government facilities nearest to their location, such as mandis, blood banks and much more, at the click of a button. They will also be able to see these on the most detailed and interactive street and village level maps of India, built by MapmyIndia. Citizens will also be able to view the driving distance, get directions and turn by turn voice and visual guidance to locations, including traffic and road safety alerts during navigation, through the linkage between UMANG App and MapmyIndia”.

UMANG app has already started to provide map functionality through MapmyIndia in the following services:

• Mera Ration - Through UMANG, users can identify and navigate to the ‘Nearest Fair Price Shops’ as shops are visible in the form of pointers on MapmyIndia integrated map.
• eNAM - Through UMANG, 'Mandi Near Me' service will help users to identify and navigate to the nearby mandis pointed on the map.
• Damini - ‘Damini Lightning Alerts’ service is to provide lightning alerts to users by giving a visual ofnearby areaswhere lightning has struck in the last few minutes. This alert mechanism provides the possibility of lightning strikes on map view.

To further increase usefulness to citizens, the map functionality will be shortly enabled in many more services such as:

• ESIC - Users can view ESIC centers such as hospitals/dispensaries on map view and navigate to them.
• Indian Oil - Service is to locate nearby retail and distributors of Gas stations as well as fuel filling stations.
• NHAI: Users can view the toll plazas and toll rates information while travelling.
• National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) provides information corresponding to nearby police stations on the map.
• Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (Meri Sadak) will help users to raise complaints of damaged roads (under PMGSY) by selecting the road on MapmyIndia platform.

The UMANG mobile app (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) is a Government of India single, unified, secure, multi-channel, multi-platform, multi-lingual, multi-service mobile app, providing access to high impact services of various organizations (Central and State). Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi had launched the UMANG App in 2017. UMANG brings major government services on a single mobile app, with a larger goal to make the government accessible on mobile phones of citizens. As on date, UMANG provides about 1251 services from 257 Departments & 32 States and about 20,280 Utility Bill Payment services and many more services are there in the pipeline. UMANG user base has crossed 3.41 Crore across Android, iOS, Web and KaiOS platforms. Citizens can also access their Digilocker Accounts from UMANG and give their feedback after availing any service through Rapid Assessment System (RAS) which has been integrated with UMANG.

MapmyIndia, is a product of an indigenous, company founded and headquartered in New Delhi, India, in 1995, which has digitally mapped the entire country. It helps users find relevant places nearby and see them on detailed building level maps. MapmyIndia’s APIs enable app and technology developers to easily integrate India’s own, indigenous, Aatmanirbhar maps into their apps.

UMANG, PM Modi's Dream App Will Bring 200 Public Services On A Single Platform

[caption id="attachment_105574" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Image Via - GongTo / Shutterstock.com[/caption]

Narendra Modi government is often called as the Digital government because of the government's strong belief in the power of digital media to transform the fortunes of India as a country and bring the citizens closer to the government. Keeping in tune with its this image, the Modi government has decided to launch a master application, UMANG, that will consolidate more than 200 services being currently offered by Central, State and Local administrations under one single platform.

According to a government official, the Modi government feels that since almost every person nowadays owns a smartphone and makes use of mobile internet, the government should provides its services wherever and on whichever medium the citizens are active.

Hailed as the 'Mother of all Apps,' UMANG is a short form for Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance. Currently being developed by information technology’s national e-governance division (NeGD) and the union ministry of communications, the app will have some 50 services by this year end if all goes according to the plan. The government aspires to take this number to 200 by the year 2019.

With UMANG, the government is hoping to make services like Passport Seva, National scholarship, Women Safety (Nirbhaya), Healthcare applications, E-Post and Public distribution system etc., available within the palms of each Indian having a smartphone and an active mobile internet connection.

The initial plan is to design UMANG as a platform which can easily maintain and remember each of the users' usage patterns, personal details and data, and save the user from the hassle of re-entering their details each time they use the App. According to the initial proposal, key identification documents like Aadhar Card (UID), PayGov and DigiLocker will also be made a part of the platform.

In order to make sure that the App is able to reach Indian citizens across states and languages, the first version of the App will be accessible in 13 Indian languages including English.

Acknowledging the fact that there are still a certain percentage of Indians who don't own Smartphones, there is also a proposal to make all the UMANG services available to these people through the means of SMS and a single toll-free number.

Though promises are many, execution seems to be a real problem with the Modi government. Same is the case currently with UMANG. Even though the project has been in planning stage for some eight months now, the government is still on a lookout for a private agency to work with on the project.

Let's hope the App see the day of light by the end of this year because we're really liking the idea for sure.