Lack of State Government Support for Mobile Applications penetration
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 25th Oct. 2016
The lack of state support for penetration of mobile based Apps might come to haunt them. While some of the states may have announced Free Wi-Fi zones which actually helps the telcos garner some business by being able to tap data market of people who would otherwise not indulge in data transfers business, however Apps from Startups do not really benefit from it. What the Startups really need is an enabling environment where people are seen using some of the Apps and thereby getting benefitted from it. This would need states to create an enabling environment where the government agencies say State Transport buses are handling their ticketing through Apps. This would require payment interconnectivity between different wallet service providers and the one servicing the government transport as well as those servicing licensed private operators. New and better Apps may continue to be adopted by Transporters as well as customers based on information levels as well as improvement in technology utility. The same can be true for various other user service charges and taxes laid by the state and municipal/local government organizations.
This would lead to an increase in demand for Apps that can be understood and appreciated by the population for their services and greater penetration of technology. In fact it would set the base for much faster technology adoption and as infrastructure continues to improve, the penetration goes up. In the mean time, we may have some legacy solutions as well as modern tech. solutions running simultaneously. The politics of distribution of laptops and mobile with continued blockade of technology actually goes on to depict protection of political ‘interests’ (read corruption) to maintain status quo. And of course it hinders development of the job market, besides rendering many technology based businesses remaining challenged for their customer outreach. Increase in adoption would not only prompt customers ask for more services, but also providers would feel more encouraged since their outreach t customer would have greater likelyhood of adoption. Free Wi-fi or free mobiles might only be a very small and high-cost support for penetration of tool, but little incentive/push for education of people to be initiated to tech based solutions from the Stratup’s point of view.
While we may have a lot of government clamour for encouragement of Startups with Chief Ministers trying to build up a youth friendly image, the polity has tended to ensure protection of legacy processes and hierarchy rather than adoption of new enabling processes. In fact, this actually sets the stage for centre with its scores for ease of doing business to get hyped. The states could have come up with rewards for local bodies like municipalities and panchayats/gram sabhas to adopt tech based solutions and become more people friendly which could at later stage move to a measure for adoption of such solutions and this would have much direct interface with public given the role of such bodies and the state (as compared to center). The parties who had experienced a loss in elections to the parties who ‘scored’ well at the state level performance seem to have had very little impact. This applies to the winner as well since the cow & temple remain on one side as well as politics of caste based reservations, freebies & entitlement and minority/tribal affairs on the other side. The points of tussle in politics seem to issues like GST, Investment environment/claim, Industry-sector development plan etc. where the parties want to make their mark usually by vitiating the atmosphere through one-upmanship (this stand true for those in power as well) rather than for the sake of public interest. Let’s watch the game evolve further
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 25th Oct. 2016
The lack of state support for penetration of mobile based Apps might come to haunt them. While some of the states may have announced Free Wi-Fi zones which actually helps the telcos garner some business by being able to tap data market of people who would otherwise not indulge in data transfers business, however Apps from Startups do not really benefit from it. What the Startups really need is an enabling environment where people are seen using some of the Apps and thereby getting benefitted from it. This would need states to create an enabling environment where the government agencies say State Transport buses are handling their ticketing through Apps. This would require payment interconnectivity between different wallet service providers and the one servicing the government transport as well as those servicing licensed private operators. New and better Apps may continue to be adopted by Transporters as well as customers based on information levels as well as improvement in technology utility. The same can be true for various other user service charges and taxes laid by the state and municipal/local government organizations.
This would lead to an increase in demand for Apps that can be understood and appreciated by the population for their services and greater penetration of technology. In fact it would set the base for much faster technology adoption and as infrastructure continues to improve, the penetration goes up. In the mean time, we may have some legacy solutions as well as modern tech. solutions running simultaneously. The politics of distribution of laptops and mobile with continued blockade of technology actually goes on to depict protection of political ‘interests’ (read corruption) to maintain status quo. And of course it hinders development of the job market, besides rendering many technology based businesses remaining challenged for their customer outreach. Increase in adoption would not only prompt customers ask for more services, but also providers would feel more encouraged since their outreach t customer would have greater likelyhood of adoption. Free Wi-fi or free mobiles might only be a very small and high-cost support for penetration of tool, but little incentive/push for education of people to be initiated to tech based solutions from the Stratup’s point of view.
While we may have a lot of government clamour for encouragement of Startups with Chief Ministers trying to build up a youth friendly image, the polity has tended to ensure protection of legacy processes and hierarchy rather than adoption of new enabling processes. In fact, this actually sets the stage for centre with its scores for ease of doing business to get hyped. The states could have come up with rewards for local bodies like municipalities and panchayats/gram sabhas to adopt tech based solutions and become more people friendly which could at later stage move to a measure for adoption of such solutions and this would have much direct interface with public given the role of such bodies and the state (as compared to center). The parties who had experienced a loss in elections to the parties who ‘scored’ well at the state level performance seem to have had very little impact. This applies to the winner as well since the cow & temple remain on one side as well as politics of caste based reservations, freebies & entitlement and minority/tribal affairs on the other side. The points of tussle in politics seem to issues like GST, Investment environment/claim, Industry-sector development plan etc. where the parties want to make their mark usually by vitiating the atmosphere through one-upmanship (this stand true for those in power as well) rather than for the sake of public interest. Let’s watch the game evolve further