Twitter brings govt. closer to citizens with SMS updates

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Prime minister Narendra Modi took e-governance mission a step further by launching a new service on Twitter called ‘Twitter Samvad’. This will help the government bodies and leaders communicate directly with the citizens via Tweets and SMS on their mobile devices.

Updates on government services, policies and activities can be delivered to users on their mobile devices. Anyone with a mobile phone, with our without a data plan, can register for the service by giving a missed call to a unique number for each of the partners. Twitter Samvad can also be used during the time of emergency also to deliver live updates about any rescue efforts.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo who met Prime Minister Modi during his first-ever visit to India, to discuss further areas of collaboration, said, “Based on Indian technological innovation, Twitter Samvad is dedicated and specially built for the largest democracy of the world. The Lok Sabha election of 2014 was the first-ever Twitter Election in India and we want to continue contributing to the development of digital governance in India. As part of the Prime Minister’s Digital India initiative, this Tweet-powered service enables citizens to be the first to know about the government’s actions by receiving political content in real-time on their mobile devices anywhere in the country.”

Here’s how Twitter Samvad will work for users:

●     Users will have to give a missed call to each of the numbers listed below to follow each of their Twitter accounts. For example, for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the number is 011 3006 3006.

●     Immediately after placing the missed call, users will start to receive a curated set of Tweets throughout the day keeping them in touch with leaders and government agencies.

●     In case of emergency or urgent public announcements, account owners (leaders, government agencies, disaster management cell) can instantly send an update on a given situation to all registered users.

Twitter Samvad is based on the platform provided by ZipDial, an Indian company recently acquired by Twitter, making this the company’s first Indian service launched using indigenous technology.

Here is a list of a 16 government partners who are participating in the launch of Twitter Samvad: