Indian Government today announced launch of its own pilot app store aptly named “eGov App Store”. The store is primarily a repository of apps that have been developed by the Center or states for some specific purpose.
The eGov app store has been developed by Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. This app store has been built for various government agencies and departments at the Centre/State who can implement them at their premises without investing too much of effort. This will also save a lot of money for various departments as they will not need to develop such applications themselves.
According to the eGov Appstore portal, it has been built with following 4 objectives:
- Speeding up the development and deployment of eGov applications
- Easy replication of successful applications across States
- Avoid duplication of effort and cost in development of similar application
- Ensure availability of certified applications following common standards at one place
Currently the appstore showcases around 20 applications that were developed for specific requirement of states.
[box type=”shadow” ]So, for example Maharashtra state has developed and implemented a particular web application for biometric authentication, the same solution / app can me made available on the eGov Appstore, so other states could download it and implement it for themselves without any costs.[/box]
Currently eGov Appstore is still in pilot, and most of the applications are only for purpose of showcasing. However, in the future, applications that are in demand will be productized and made available on the eGov AppStore to be used as SaaS.
These apps will be hosted on the National Cloud and will be made available to everyone free of cost. Common components like the payment gateway, messaging platform, MIS reporting, etc, will also be made available in the eGov AppStore.
This is a great initiative by Government, that has potential to save lot of money for the Government. Currently, different states spend lot of money developing applications that are similar in nature. With eGov appstore that spending could be cut down to a large extent.
Do have a look at the eGov appstore and let us know what you feel!
It is a welcome move by the Government of India…Actually its good for us, as we are having loads of options nowadays….Amazon too launched its own Appstore for android in India….Indian government is understanding the digital needs of the countrymen, and it is taking necessary steps for it too…
This is an expected move as their are some oriented guys working on this initiative step wise. In past few months govt. had launched an app development competition as well.