CM PATEL'S DIGITAL RAP

The Gujarat chief minister's office is getting a more digital arsenal to improve governance

-  Jumana Shah

After the assembly election win in December 2022, chief minister Bhupendra Patel launched a WhatsApp bot in January and then the Urban Grievance Redressal Monitoring System (UGRMS). The bot allows people to directly connect with the CM. In late April, the CMO also celebrated the 20-year anniversary of the 'Swagat' grievance redressal system where the CM personally interacts with complainants via video conferencing on the fourth Thursday of every month. And at the end of the chintan shivir in mid-May, health minister Rushikesh Patel said they were thinking of integrating artificial intelligence (A-I) into administrative functioning.

The UGRMS, meanwhile, is a mechanism to monitor in real time the status of complaints made in eight municipal corporations of the state. It is plugged into a five-year old system called the CM Dashboard that allows Bhupendra's office (CMO) to digitally monitor the implementation of schemes in real time.

After three decades in power in Gujarat, one of the key reason attributed to the BJP government's success are its schemes and benefits for people. Scheme beneficiaries or labharthis are now emerging as a vote bank to reckon with. Effective implementation of government schemes is an evolving challenge. The development of the CM Dashboard was initiated in 2018, with help from the central National Informatics Centre (NIC).