Now youth to grade the Govt

Lata Jain

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts." - Abraham Lincoln

Nobody likes being taken for a ride by their self-elected politicians. This figure of speech is more apt when the ride is along the pothole ridden roads of your city. iForIndia founder, Ankur Garg, explains this is exactly how he got the idea for the new socio-political venture that allows one to rate the services provided to the citizens by the government – while driving through the pothole ridden roads of Ghaziabad, UP.

The urge to proactively do something about some of the most pressing issues was such that he quit his seven year association with Microsoft and founded iForIndia.org

iForIndia is a platform where citizens can engage the government in constructive discussions rather than feeling helpless and giving it all-encompassing labels of ‘corrupt’ and ‘inefficient’. Through this portal citizens can rate metrics such as roads, electricity, clean drinking water, law and order, security, corruption and many other services or issues specific to their area.

Since these civic issues are the responsibility of an MLA, MP, CM and ultimately the PM, these ratings are used to generate report cards for each of these elected officials. The presence of these report cards in the public domain will also encourage like-minded people to come together to engross the government in discussions bringing around accountability into governance, thus pushing the democratic process in the right direction.

Ankur added, “We sincerely believe in the power of technology to bring about a positive change in society. Open access to opinions of the electorate on government’s performance on specific metrics will be beneficial to both the government and the citizens. This is a unique opportunity for meaningful engagement between the common man and the elected officials it will hopefully prove to be a catalyst in the evolution of democracy in our country”. He points out that in India, everyone starting from a four year old kindergartener to the CEO of a company they both go through a periodic performance measurement in the form of report cards either at school or quarterly reviews in office. He questions “Why can we not have a similar system for our politicians?”.

Co-Founder Tarun Jain feels that, “A well informed electorate is imperative to a well-functioning democracy. Informed citizens can make intelligent decisions while going to cast their vote and can hold politicians accountable for their performance and promises that were made at the time of elections. Recent events have shown that it is a time of political reawakening in India. Movements like RTI, Anna Hazare and protests in Delhi have proven that the citizens want more accountability from the government and are willing to take to the streets for it. We are trying to empower the citizens with a tool to hold their politicians accountable for their actions and their promises.”

The founders say that their goal is to bring about a change in the way politicians and citizens participate in our democratic process. They want the politicians to be answerable to the people who elect them. It would certainly help if public debates became more civilised and fact based rather than mudslinging contests where the only thing that prevails is a hyperbole.

The citizens need to become active participants in the democratic process. One great thing about the country is that it allows everyone to have an equal say in our democracy, yet, sadly in the last elections, less than 60% of the population went out and casted their votes. This is the attitude that iForIndia wants to change. It states under its goals that ‘We want the electorate to become active and engaged and to provide real time feedback. It should vote based on facts, analysis and rationalisation instead of voting along parochial lines or through identity politics or feeling alienated or apathetic altogether.’

The founders say that they have nothing against the government, claiming that they sincerely believe that there are politicians who are honestly trying very hard to do a good job with the power that is vested in them. They say that their data can help the government come up with targeted policies and plans of action to more effectively address public concerns. Knowing the particular concerns of a specific section of the society can be a great asset to the politicians who have the right intentions, but have also had to face difficulty coming up with the best possible solutions to address the problems of people they govern.

Democracies around the world are witnessing a time of significant evolution. From the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US to the Arab Springs, governments have had to bow down to the power of people. But, the first step is that people have to unite and collectively voice their opinions. For any democracy to be successful, its people need to be informed and engaged on a continuous basis with the government. Such a public can hold its politicians accountable to their promises, actions (or lack thereof), comments and claims in public. The duty of the citizens is not finished once they get out of the polling booth. Democracy requires a constant and enduring engagement with the elected representatives. If the people awaken once in five years, how can the politicians they elect be expected to behave any differently?

The website is easy to use with a user-friendly interface and provides citizens a confidential way to rate services using a password protected account. Users rate the services and issues most important to them, and based on these ratings, report cards are generated for the user’s MLA and CM (with plans underway to generate similar report cards for MPs and the PM). A strong focus on security includes a mobile number authentication and fraud check algorithms to ensure the identity of individuals rating their elected officials cannot be compromised and that the system remains defensible against fake users and multiple account holders. The founders claim that security is of supreme importance to them because they want the platform to be as trustworthy as the electoral process in the country.

The founders of the website are young professionals with strong educational and professional credentials. Ankur is an IIM-A and Microsoft India alumnus while Tarun is a University of Southern California and Capital One Financial alumnus. The founders envision the ‘report cards’ on the website as the first step towards making it a one stop online destination for news, data, opinions and analysis of political issues. Ankur also shared future plans for the website to increase its reach and impact. “Although the website is launched in English, we are making efforts to provide users the option to use the website in a number of regional languages. We also plan on launching smartphone apps that will enable citizens to use the website anywhere and anytime.”

Let’s hope that the initiative can bring to the public the real facts with which it can be depended upon to meet the current national crises.