The much anticipated “Nagarik App” has finally launched albeit in the beta stage. The Government of Nepal, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MoCIT) under its Digital Nepal Framework project has launched the app with an aim to provide all government services such as PAN registration, tax details, and more via a single platform.
MoCIT gathered data including citizenship registration, PAN registration, and passport registration thereby profiling the digital identity of 21.5 million citizens registered at the Ministry of Home Affairs and Information that comprise fingerprints and photos of 15.5 million citizens from the Election Commission’s server.
The app requires users to register their phone (the mobile number should be in users’ own name) and citizenship number hence allows them to audit governmental services across 64 governmental entities in Nepal. For now, the services are constrained to just 40 authorities while the remaining are slated to be gradually added.
Minister Parbat Gurung amidst the launch event said, “Since it is a beta version, the app will provide only around 50 percent services at the moment. However, our team is working on making all the services available in the next three months.” He added, “It is hoped that the app will save citizens a considerable amount of time and also reduce corruption by increasing transparency. All the decentralized services that are now provided by the local governments to the citizens can also be availed through this app.”
Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli urged all Nepalese to make use of the Nagarik App and provide feedback.
We are already receiving public feedbacks most of which concerns bugs related to registration. Since Nagarik App is still in the beta stage, we expect MoCIT to resolve bugs accordingly while adding all government bodies soon as the application has already started receiving massive downloads.
