Government services at your doorstep, New Delhi launches Mobile Sahayak

• The chief minister of New Delhi inaugurated the Mobile Sahayak initiative today that brings government services to your doorstep.
• Assisting with 40 government services, citizens will no longer have to physically go to government offices to verify or submit their documents.
  
• Instead, a runner or ‘Mobile Sahayak’ will swing by your house at a time of your choosing to perform the necessary tasks.

A year ago in November, the Delhi Government announced that they would be launching a program to implement the ‘home delivery of governance’ in collaboration with a private agency. Today that service, called the ‘Mobile Sahayak’, has gone live and can aid with 40 government services, 35 of which are already online.

The Mobile Sahayak program is designed by the government in partnership with VFS Global. Inaugurated today by the city’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, it’s basically a system that consists of a call center, human capital assisting as sahayaks or helpers, a mobile portal, and biometric devices. It’s not even that expensive - it comes at a nominal fee of ₹50 (70 cents) for a home visit

Some services that can be availed through the program are driving licence applications, passport help, caste certificates, income certificates, ration card,

How does it work?

All citizens have to do is call 1076, where a call center executive will ask how they can be of assistance. In case there’s a document missing, a Mobile Sahayak will be appointed for the service who will go the citizens home to collect the same at a predetermined time.

Whatever is needed, will be fed into the Mobile Sahayak mobile portal and verified through biometric authentication. Citizens can pay using cash or if the service is provided online, then payments can be made through the government’s payment gateway.

Citizens can keep tabs on their application through the unique reference ID that the sahayak will share through a receipt via SMS or email. That means, in case you’ve submitted physical documents, then there will be a record of that on the receipt.

Doorstep delivery of service entails that for some, citizens may never even have to go to the respective government office and for others, it would improve the time efficiency to just one visit.

Why does New Delhi need doorstep delivery of governance?

Going to government offices to avail services is a time consuming and a hectic process. Over the past couple of years with Delhi’s population bloating well beyond its capacity, the lines have gotten longer, the official to citizen ratio has gotten more skewed and the most simple of tasks require multiple visits.

Kejriwal also claims that this ‘revolution in governance’ will greatly cut down on corruption by addressing the demand-supply disparity between government officials and citizens. He also announced that this system is the first of its kind anywhere in the world.