The Shresth Himachal (Excellent Himachal) has been launched by the Sh. Virbhadra Singh, Hon’ble Chief Minister Himachal Pradesh on 5th October 2017 at Shimlal. Sh. V.C. Pharka, Chief Secretary, Himachal Pradesh was present on the occasion and he is the brain behind this App. He has held VCs with DC/SDMs to sensitize them about the App and prepare them for its usage. Sh. Kaul Singh, Revenue Minister, Sh. Prakash Chaudhary, Excise & Taxation Minister and MLAs were present on the occassion.
The objective of the App is to provide public as well as the administration with a single tool to deal with the complaints related to Crime, Disaster, Garbage, Road Blockage, Forest Theft/Fire or Road Accident. The user can authenticate themselves for filing such complaints, using mobile number by OTP authentication.
While registering any complaint, the user can send photograph of the incidence along with GPS coordinates, which is a common feature available in android based smart phones/devices. Depending up on the GPS coordinates, the relevant District and Sub Divisions are shown which the user can change, if required. Once submitted, the details are available to the concerned Sub Divisional and District government functionaries as well as visible to the State level officers (Administrative Secretaries and Heads of Departments) through their respective dashboard. The officer can pass instructions to subordinate offices. Once the final action is taken on the reported matter, the complaint can be closed by changing its status as Disposed.
The main advantage of this mobile app is that the users don’t have to remember anything as to which Police, Health, Public Works, Administrative or Forest Officer to select for sending the information. The user just have to select the category of complaint and use the phone camera to take a picture of the incident or location and the App assists the user in selecting the right authority based on coordinates and send the photo, GPS location, type of incidence to the right authorities, when the user presses the Submit button. The follow up action will be taken up by the Authorities concerned who get the photo and GPS coordinates on Google maps to correctly identify the incident location.
The app provides a mechanism to define three emergency contacts for all users. These emergency contacts can be informed about any emergency situation with a single click of button "Send Emergency SMS" available on the home screen. The defined contacts will get the SMS as well as the GPS coordinates of the sender so that, if required, the coordinates can be used to trace the person. A complete directory of important functionaries of Himachal Pradesh Government is also bundled with the app.
Contact details of all Government officials at State/District level are available in the App and directly contacting the officers concerned, upto Sub-Division/Block level in a very user friendly manner.
The App has been developed by the National Informatics Centre, Himachal Pradesh, which has been set up as the Competency Centre for Mobile Apps in the country. The App is available for download from the Google Play Store, Himachal Government web portal and NIC eGovMobile App Store.
