tech2 News Staff

Umang, a new mobile app will launch in India in next four months. This app is an ambitious project by the Government of India and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology which aims at replacing all the existing mobile applications and be the only app that is used by smartphone users to access the government services in the country. The app will be available for iOS, Android and Windows Mobile platforms.

The issue with the current system is that each department involved in governance has a separate app for users to access and interact with to get the work done. This results in an inconsistent experience across all apps while making the development of all the apps very slow because of different development managing their apps.The initial roll out of the app will only contain a small number of government services with a gradual increase in the number of services being offered. The first service to be integrated is Aadhar, the unique identity number that will provide a validation layer for all the services along with healthcare and skill development service aimed at farmers and students.

The initial roll out of the app will only contain a small number of government services with a gradual increase in the number of services being offered. The first service to be integrated is Aadhar, the unique identity number that will provide a validation layer for all the services along with healthcare and skill development service aimed at farmers and students.

Spice Digital, a subsidiary of 'Spice Connect group' based out of Noida will develop the first set of apps as part of the new Umang (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) app as reported by Economic Times. According to estimates, approximately 200 mobile apps will be part of the project by December 2019. Spice Digital will provide support to e-KYC and document access using Digilocker, all based on Aadhar. Also, the company will give access to safe and streamlined payment access using the default government payment gateway, 'PayGov.'

Umang will be different for the existing service "Mobile Seva" and include a section where users can set the preferences for frequently accessed services, short-cuts, languages and other details. This will provide a default scheme for all the departments and services while at the same time while at the same time reducing redundant data.

Even though Mobile Seva is the existing platform and works well 600-800 apps but the new Umang platform will ensure that developers don't have to develop separate apps, Instead make one app and concentrating all the efforts to improve the application. According to reports, Umang team is working with the government departments that don't have mobile applications, making it easier for them to transition to providing Government services online. You can check the details of Umang platform in the proposal document by National e-Governance Division.