‘HelpMe’ app gets 2.23L downloads, 1.5L queries

Geetanjali Gayatri

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 4

“Most of the queries have been regarding cooked food, dry rations and the need for LPG cylinders. A number of individuals have also sought financial help to pay rents and buy ration,” says Bhuvan Rawal, the public volunteer who helped the state government design the app.

The provision of donations — of cooked food, dry ration and financial aid — incorporated into the app at the instance of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has elicited a satisfactory response from the public. The app has already seen 400 requests for donations.

The platform designed collaboratively by the government and the team at OfBusiness, a private company, as a CSR initiative, presently offers 19 services, including resource material for students of schools and colleges, e-kharid farmer services, e-mistry services for technicians, skill education, request for shelter, for technicians, movement pass, providing bank slots among others. It offers any kind of assistance that may be needed during the lockdown in a time-bound manner.

While three hours is the maximum time fixed for responding to a need for cooked food, dry ration is being given within 12 hours and LPG cylinders and movement passes in 24 hours. However, this is done after complete verification of the ground situation by a team of the district it comes from. For those wanting assistance in education, study material is readily available and can be instantly accessed by the user though content is being improved by adding topic-related videos.

Designed by two under-trainee HCS officers, Devender Kumar and Jai Prakash with help from the public volunteer, Rawal, the app was readied in three weeks though, initially, it was launched in Faridabad and, later, picked up by the state. “We were training at the HIPA when we were attached to the Faridabad administration and given the charge of the control room. Since we are from engineering backgrounds, we put our heads together to do away with the manual noting of calls and forwarding of messages received on the helpline and used technology instead,” Sharma explains. The app has a miscellaneous category where the call centres at the backend direct queries which do not fall into any of the 19 slots available. The plan is to keep adding more services.