The UMANG mobile app (unified mobile application for new-age governance) is the government’s all-in-one single, unified, multi-channel, multi-platform, multilingual, multi-service mobile app.
It is powered by a robust back-endeep28octd platform providing access to high impact services of various organisations, both central and state. It offers pan Indian e-government services like healthcare, finance, education, housing, energy, agriculture, and employment.
The country’s Prime Minister launched the UMANG app to make several public services easilt available on a single platform.
Around 660 services from 127 departments and 25 states and about 180 bill payment services are live, and more are will be added shortly, a press release has noted. It also provides utility services from private organisations. These include Aadhaar, PAN, passport, and driving licence, among others.
The UMANG user base has crossed 21 million, including Android, iOS, and KaiOS. Citizens can also access their Digilocker from UMANG and give feedback after availing any service through the rapid assessment system (RAS), which has been integrated with UMANG.
DigiLocker is a platform to electronically distribute and verify documents and certificates, eliminating the need for physical documents. Citizens who sign up for an account get a dedicated cloud storage space that is linked to their UID (unique identification) or Aadhaar number.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has taken various initiatives in recent past to ease of lives of citizens by facilitating the online delivery of government services, the release said.
To enhance the initiatives of the Digital India programme, MeitY has integrated the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) services on the app.
Launched in 2015, Digital India is a government flagship programme to digitally transform every sector of the country.
Seven services hosted on IMD’s website have been on-boarded on UMANG Mobile application:
Current weather: Provides the current temperature, humidity, wind speed, and direction for 150 cities. It is updated eight times a day. Also, information on sunrise, sunset, and moonrise.
Nowcast: Three hourly warnings of localised weather phenomena and their intensity issued for about 800 stations and districts by State Meteorological Centres of IMD. In case of severe weather, its impact also is included in the warning.
City Forecast: The past 24 hours and seven-day forecast of weather conditions around 450 cities in India are given.
Rainfall Information– Information about any district’s rainfall; daily, weekly, monthly, and cumulative series are available.
Tourism Forecast- The past 24 hours and seven-day forecast of weather conditions of around 100 tourist cities in India are provided.
Warnings- An alert is issued to warn citizens of approaching dangerous weather. It is colour-coded in red, orange, and yellow; red is the most severe category. Issued twice a day for all districts for the next five days.
Cyclone- Cyclone warnings and alerts provide the track of cyclonic storms along with the likely time and point of crossing the coast. Impact-based warnings, and area and district-wise, are issued for the appropriate preparation like evacuating vulnerable areas.
Recently, the government launched an online portal, called Champions, utilises the latest ICT tools and aims to assist Indian enterprises to have a platform to compete in international markets.
Short for Creation and Harmonious Application of Modern Processes for Increasing the Output and National Strength, the portal offers support for the country’s small businesses, as OpenGov reported earlier.
In addition to ICT tools like video conferencing facilities, the system is enabled by artificial intelligence, data analytics, and machine learning.