Govt Plans to Develop App Store for Public Services

New Delhi: The government proposes to create its own application store to assist delivery of various public services through mobile phones, it said in the framework for mobile governance.

The framework proposes to have an integrated payment gateway which will enable users to pay for the public services through mobile phones.

"A mobile applications ( m-apps) store will be created to facilitate the process of development and deployment of suitable applications for delivery of public services through mobile devices," the framework issued by the Department of Information Technology (DIT) said.

The store will be integrated into the Mobile Services Delivery Gateway (MSDG) - the core infrastructure for delivery of public services and will be created by an agency within the DIT. It will have provision to connect with private value added services providers for creation of various mobile applications.

As per framework, MSDG will use unique identity number Aadhaar-based authentication system for transactions.

At present, various private companies like Apple, Nokia, BlackBerry maker Research-in-Motion, Google have application stores which allows use of various services and content that is generally not available in their handset.

The framework also proposes to create Mobile Governance Innovation Fund to accelerate the development and deployment of the mobile applications across the entire spectrum of public services.

All the government websites will now have to be compliant with mobile devices to enable users access same information and services (to the extent possible) as are available over the Internet through computers on mobiles.