BENGALURU: Soon you will get incentives in the form of cash-back cards or cash discounts whenever you transact through the state government’s ‘Karnataka MobileOne’, a multi-mode mobile governance platform.
For, the e-governance Department is in talks with players in the e-commerce business - including Mobikwik, an e-wallet provider - to partner with it to popularise the MobileOne App.
While the government will give the private player its platform free of cost to popularise its product, the latter will pay the incentives to the customers, who transact through the App.
This exercise is being taken up as the integrated mobile platform did not get expected response from the mobile users despite a launch by President Pranab Mukherjee amidst much fanfare in December 2014.
So far, the platform has seen 2.04 crore hits and 2 lakh downloads, which is nothing, considering the big mobile customer base in the state.
The response from rural areas is said to be very low. However, the platform has seen transactions worth Rs 14 crore.
Apart from incentivising, the Department has also chalked out an aggressive campaign programme such as advertising using all forms of media, including Facebook, to make people aware of the App that is considered to be the first-of-its-kind in the country and the world’s largest mobile platform with over 4,000 services both from the government and the private sector on offer.
“We want at least 25 per cent of mobile users to transact through our App by the next year. In this direction, we have chalked out an aggressive campaign plan which should begin in a month or two, “ said Chief Executive Officer, Centre for e-Governance, Dr Rathan Kelkar.
When asked about incentivising transactions that happen through MobileOne, Kelkar said that was also being considered seriously.
Apart from giving intense publicity, the department is also in the process of adding more government services to increase its usage. “When we started it, only Bengaluru Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) was integrated. But now we have Mysuru and Hubballi ESCOMS on board. We are also in talks with Gulbarga ESCOM,” Kelkar added.
“At present, 37 government departments have come on board and we are trying to bring in more departments,” he said.