Umang App: What Exactly Is PM Modi’s New Citizen-Centric App And Do We Really Need It?

Remember the BHIM App that was said to help India go cashless? Well, if you don’t, it’s not your mistakes as despite various reports highlight the huge number of downloads, BHIM has been a sure short failure for the PM Modi government.

First, it was demonetization, then came GST, which has had as many modifications as the number of total sections in the whole law, both of which are considered to be the current government’s biggest failures. There are times when a common man residing in India gets questioned on what exactly has the BJP government done since coming into power and he/she struggles to come up with an appropriate answer.

But as the 2019 polls are just around the corner, here comes the Umang App which is said to bring multiple citizen-centric government services under one roof and give a boost to e-governance as well as the Digital India programme. The Umang App was launched by Indian Prime Minister Narender Modi at the 5th Global Conference on Cyberspace in New Delhi as a one-stop solution for more than 100 state and center government services.

Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance aka the Umang App has been developed Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and National e-Governance Division (NeGD), and offers a total number of 162 different services from 33 central and state government departments, along with four states.

That said, in between all that has been said about Aadhaar-Linking, the Umang App doesn’t ask for Aadhaar number, PAN or other such information for users to register on the platform, which can be termed as a huge USP for the application, considering the current scenario.

However, while making a transaction through this app, users will still have to provide these informations but unless you are searching through the various services it provides or information regarding any government department, you are good to go.

On the other hand, the Umang App, which is available for Android, iOS, and Windows operating system, will ask for KYC completion and Aadhaar-linkage in cases of filing income tax returns and applying for PAN card among other such tasks.

Features of Umang App

• The Umang App integrates with other core government services of Aadhaar, Rapid Assessment System, DigiLocker and Bharat Bill Payment System.

• It can be used for services like EPFO, PAN card, Bharat Bill Pay, Kisan Suvidha, AICTE, National Pension Portal, Passport Seva, Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojna, Crop insurance and Saral.

• It can also be used to pay utility bills like electricity bills, Bharat Gas and more.

• Users can search for services/departments according to their needs. For example, CBSE, AICTE, and PAN card. The search option shows the ‘trending searches’.

• The Umang App is currently available in 13 languages which include English, Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, Kannada, Marathi, Urdu, Oriya, Assamese, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu.

• Just like any other service-centric app, Umang also comes with a Live Chat feature. Other than that, there’s also a Phone support which allows users to make a call in case of any query or clarification regarding the app or any of the services.

• Dedicated customer service support from 8 am to 8 pm every day.

• While the application allows users to manage their security settings, it is also claimed to save user details in the encrypted format, meaning that the server will have no control over the information.

• Users can also link their Umang App account with their social media profiles.

Do we really needed the Umang App

It’s a sure shot Yes if India ever wants to go Digitised. What has left us impressed the most is the fact that the data is stored in encrypted form, just like what WhatsApp does and for the first time, it’s an initiative from the Modi Government whose practicality can’t be questioned.

Be it a housewife, a businessman or a student, every single one of us has to use various government services every now and then, and making all of them being accessible via a smartphone is a rather great move by the government.