Former President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday launched the National Electoral Transformation or NETA mobile application, a platform which allows others to rate and review their political representatives and aims to foster political accountability and transparency among leaders.
The new application will let users rate their MLAs and MPs and is being billed as an instrument to gauge voter sentiment across constituencies in the country.
“A good democracy cannot function without informed voters, good leaders, accountability and complete transparency,” Mukherjee said at the launch of the mobile app, which is the brainchild of 27-year-old entrepreneur Pratham Mittal.
Inspired by the US’ approval system, the app seeks to let users rate their MLAs and MPs. To ensure participation, the app requires a combination of mediums like the app itself, IVR calls, SMS and even offline activation leveraging ASHA and anganwadi workers to collate data on evolving political inclinations.
Speaking on the occasion, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal noted that while India is a large democracy, there are people who give their votes based on caste, religion and other perceptions.
"There are many who have not even met their representatives... in such an atmosphere I think this initiative will give voters information about candidates and their work. It would help both the party and people," he said.
Mittal, founder of Neta App, said that the platform uses combination of Artificial Intelligence, advanced algorithms, one time password and Aadhaar numbers to ensure that the voters who rate leaders are genuine.
Piloted during the February bypolls in Rajasthan’s Ajmer and Alwar constituencies, the app was later used in Karnataka ahead of the assembly elections in May.
The app in its beta version has already seen over 1.5 crore verified voters rating and reviewing their local leaders across 543 parliamentary constituencies and 4,120 assembly constituencies over the last eight months.
The app is available on Andriod and iOS and web in 16 languages to cater to a diverse user profile.
According to a statement, to ensure participation across demographics including rural areas, the platform uses a combination of mediums like the app itself, IVR calls, SMS and even offline activation leveraging ASHA and Aanganwadi workers to collate data on evolving political inclinations.
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