Micro-blogging platform Twitter is now considering the roll-out of the Twitter Seva service in other countries such as the U.K. and the UAE. This follows the success of the service, developed for the India market to help delivery of e-governance services.
Large volumes Twitter Seva helps process a large volume of tweets and assigns them to the relevant authority for real-time resolution.
It is currently being used by Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Railways, besides the Bengaluru Police.
“Twitter Seva is an India-only product right now,” Raheel Khursheed, Head of News, Government and Politics Partnerships at Twitter India, said in an interaction. He added, “It is probably now that it will go from India to other geographies like the U.K. and the UAE and a few countries that are excited to see this work here.”
Made in India The product had been designed and developed in the country, and the processes that Twitter had built into it are ‘absolutely’ India exclusive, according to him.
Twitter India is also exploring the roll-out of the product with more ministries and state governments, he added.
“The objective is to inject this solution as a real-time service delivery and feedback-gathering mechanism...With the help of the Twitter dashboard, queries and complaints can be easily monitored and quick actions can be taken.
“The detailed analysis of the tweets also presents insights about their audience along with the receptiveness and impact of their tweets,” Mr Khursheed said.
Through the service, the Railway Ministry processes about 5,500 tweets per day, responding to any citizen query related to catering, cleanliness, or even urgent medical support on board a train.
Similarly, Ministry of External Affairs processes over 6,000 tweets in a month, while the number is over 40,000 per month for Commerce Ministry and over 3,000 in a month for Bengaluru Police.
Talking about the use of Twitter by the NDA-government, Mr. Khursheed said, “While the government is using Twitter to communicate what it wants to, it is also making a shift to (using the platform to) deliver services as well. This is not a coincidence… it is an innovation happening pretty much only in the Indian market.”
Citizen connect Mr Khursheed added that in the two years of being in power, Prime Minister Modi’s following on Twitter has grown by 400 per cent from 4 million to 20 million followers, making him the most-followed political leader in India and second in the world after American President Barack Obama.
Further, 95 per cent of ministers in the ruling government are active on Twitter, according to him.
