Given how other governments have also tried to get citizen-government partnerships to work?Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit had the bhagidari programme?the success of the MyGov platform launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi largely depends upon how far the project is taken. For now, the plan seems to be task-oriented with the platform focused on areas like Clean Ganga, Girl Child Education, Clean India, Skilled India, Digital India and Job Creation?the idea is to create both online and onground tasks that can be taken up by each contributor. For the process to be truly meaningful, this means a radical shift in the way governance is conceived since all the suggestions given will have to be dealt with in a certain framework, and tasks assigned to volunteers will have to add up to some part of a larger picture. If that doesn?t take place, the platform will deteriorate into just another PR exercise, with citizens giving their ideas, and these getting passed on to the concerned departments with little or no meaningful follow up action.
What will make MyGov truly unique, of course, is taking it to the next level, to get more inputs into policy-making. Some of this, of course, already happens when, for instance, discussion papers are released on, say, privatising of airports or on auctions of 3G spectrum, or moving to the Direct Taxes Code or the Goods and Services Tax. What is required, however, is to make such debate more widespread. While the government must have the last word on decisions, some wider participation is critical for coherent policy-making. In the case of the decision to put onions on the Essential Commodities Act, for instance, several experts pointed out, after the decision had been taken, that this was a bad idea since, if there aren?t enough stocks with traders?and there cannot be once the ECA is invoked?prices would spiral in the months to the next crop. Similarly, in the case of the current WTO debate over India threatening to put the Trade Facilitation Agreement on hold, there have been divergent views expressed, including in this newspaper. In the long run, it would benefit everyone if the government did more of its policy formulations through discussion papers put up on open platforms that encourage active participation by concerned citizens.