UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New Age Governance), developed by MeitY and National e-Governance Division (NeGD), was launched in 2017 as a one stop solution to access citizen data, key government schemes and critical documents. Three years following the launch, the app has hit another milestone – the international version of the app was launched by Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad yesterday at a virtual event.

This version was launched for markets like USA, UK, Canada, Australia, The Netherlands, UAE, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, and meant to help international students, NRIs and tourists to avail the services of the Government of India. In addition, the app will help taking India to the world through ‘Indian Culture’ services made available, and pique the interest of foreign tourists as well, said the official statement.

The app has 2039 services – which are broken down into 373 central government services, 487 state government services and 1179 utility-based services; including the EPFO, IMD, PM-JAY and more. 189 state and central government departments are synced to the app.

At the virtual event, the minister emphasized on the role of AI to develop voice-based solutions to ensure UMANG can reach the furthest corners of India; and help those navigate new age technologies in a language they are comfortable with.

Speech is one of the most widely accepted forms of communication in India’s semi-urban and rural pockets. More entrepreneurs and digital technology providers believe that voice-assisted technologies are the most effective way to bridge the digital divide in India, and advancements in fields like NLP, Speech to Text, voice recognition can help scale barriers effectively.

"Digital India must lead to digital inclusion; it must bridge the digital divide. This must be achieved by technology, which is home grown and also inclusive. This was concretized when the Prime Minister had told me that I want governance to be available on the palm of every Indian," said minister Prasad said while marking the occasion of three years of UMANG.