PMO using Big Data
techniques on mygov.in to translate popular mood into government action
NEW DELHI: The Prime
Minister's Office is using Big Data techniques to process ideas thrown up by
citizens on its crowdsourcing platform mygov. in, place them in context of the
popular mood as reflected in trends on social media, and generate actionable
reports for ministries and departments to consider and implement.
The Modi government
has roped in global consulting firm PwC to assist in the data mining exercise,
and now wants to elevate Mygov.in platform from a one-way flow of citizens'
ideas to a dialogue where the government keeps them abreast of some of the
actions that emerge from their brainstorming.
"There is a large
professional data analytics team working behind the scenes to process and
filter key points emerging from debates on mygov.in, gauge popular mood about
particular issues from social media sites like Twitter and Facebook," said
a senior official aware of the development, adding that these are collated into
special reports about possible action points that are shared with the PMO and
line ministries. Ministries are being asked to revert with an action taken report
on these ideas and policy suggestions currently being generated on 19 different
policy challenges such as expenditure reforms, job creation, energy
conservation, skill development and government initiatives such as Clean India,
Digital India and Clean Ganga.
With the PM inviting
Indian communities in America and Australia to join the online platform, which
he has termed a 'mass movement towards Surajya', the traffic handling capacity
of mygov.in is being scaled up consistently, the official said.
PwC executive director
Neel Ratan said that the firm is 'helping the government' process the citizen
inputs coming through on Mygov. in in.
"There is a
science and art behind it. We have people constantly looking at all ideas
coming up, filtering them and after a lot of analysis, correlating it to
sentiments coming through on the rest of social media," he said, stressing
this is throwing up interesting trends and action points, being relayed to ministries.
"It's turning out to be fairly action-oriented. I think it is distinctly
possible that 30-50 million people would be actively contributing to Mygov.in
over the next year and a half, given its current pace of growth," Ratan
said.
PwC's global leader in
government and public services Jan Sturesson told ET the participative
governance model being adopted through mygov.in could become a model for the
developed world.
"The biggest
issue for governments today is how to be relevant. If all citizens are treated
with dignity and invited to collaborate, it can be easier for administrations
to have a direct finger on the pulse of the nation rather than lose it in
transmission through multiple layers of bureaucracy," he said, not ruling
out the possibility of using the mygov.in for quick referendums on contemporary
policy dilemmas in a couple of years.
"The problem in
the West has been that the US, Australia and UK follow a public management
philosophy that treats citizens as consumers. That's ridiculous, because a
consumer pays the bill and complains, while a citizen engages differently and
takes responsibility," said Sturesson.
Within the 19 broad
citizen engagement themes on mygov.in, there are multiple discussion groups
focused on specific subsectors and themes. When it was launched in July, the
site enabled brainstorming among its registered users around seven policy
challenges. Users are allowed to sign up for four discussion groups in areas of
interest apart from a group dealing with issues in their immediate vicinity.
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