Bengaluru:
Karnataka on Wednesday took India’s ‘Digital India’ campaign one step ahead, bagging gold prize for its MobileOne service at the World Government Summit in Dubai.
MobileOne was adjudged the best m-government service in the world at the fourth edition of the summit attended by 125 countries. The other shortlisted nominees were ‘UK.Gov’ and ‘Kazakhstan.gov.’ MobileOne was selected through online voting and the jury comprised experts from the United Nations, World Economic Forum and World Bank.
“I still don’t know who nominated us. No government (state or country) can nominate its own services. We received a communication last week that our service has been nominated and shortlisted,” e-governance secretary Srivatsa Krishna told TOI.
The app, launched in December 2014, provides integrated services to the public. It got over 1.5 crore hits with two lakh downloads.
“There are over one lakh hits and downloads every day. It works via a unique nationally available, across all telecos, all circles number 161. The app, for the first time in India, facilitates citizens to pay all their utility bills, including income tax,” Krishna said.
MobileOne was presented to the United Nations leadership in New York during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit there and was much appreciated. “We think the app got noticed at the presentation and got selected for this award,” sources said.