People may soon be able to use short messaging service (SMS) communication with government departments as documentary proof while utilising citizen-services for making payments, registrations and various other schemes. The Centre on Monday launched a platform with 241 applications for the public after completing a pilot project on mobile governance with about 100 departments and testing proof of concepts. The applications relate to services covering areas such as Right to Information (RTI), health, Aadhaar, education, directory services and so on. Satyanarayana said at present, digitally signed certificates are accepted as valid document but a similar rule has to be made for mobile phone users where SMS or a communication available on mobile phone can be accepted as valid proof. India has around 900 million mobile phone subscribers. Joint Secretary at DEITY (Department of Electronics and Information Technology) Rajendra Kumar said the department is ready with digital signature for mobile phones which the government can use in messages that are to be sent to the citizens applying for a service. He said any communication with PKI, say SMS, can be shown instead of a paper receipt or document. Kumar said that in six months the government would upgrade all applications to HTML5 standard which will make them compatible with all mobile platforms. DEITY Additional Secretary Rajiv Gauba said about 830 departments from the Centre, state and local authorities have come on board, and the department is working on the third phase to further scale up the mobile governance platform and bring more services under its ambit.

(Business Standard)