Maharashtra government plans on expanding its Mahakavach app to cover the entire state. It is currently being run as a pilot program in Nashik. The idea of this app is to help users report their home quarantine data with a real-time selfie using facial recognition technologies, while the app also collects the user’s location data that allows authorities to know they’ve been at home the entire time.
The Central Government has a more ambitious app known as Aarogya Setu, which was built with the help of NITI Aayog. Program Director and member of the Arogya Setu team, Arnab Kumar said that this app was built within two weeks. He mentioned that the launch of the Singapore-based TraceTogether app gave validation to their idea of Arogya Setu. This app uses a combination of your GPS data as well as Bluetooth to allow contact tracing of affected individuals.
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The app was approved by Apple for its App Store within 4 hours, while the Google Play Store approved it within an hour, it is said. Apps and companies have been very supportive of the Aarogya Setu app as well. It is said that the app has already seen 20 million unique users since its arrival earlier this month, although the scale of adoption remains a concern.
This is because not everyone in India owns a smartphone or even has access to the internet. Kumar added that the team is currently working on ways to make this app compatible for basic or feature phone users under the Arogya Setu umbrella. Since these phones lack Bluetooth or GPS functionality, the authorities will have to rely on cell tower data, which is deemed unreliable. This continues to be a major concern for the app’s developers.
While the Central Government is trusting the country’s population to install the app or report data honestly, the Maharashtra Government with its Mahakavach app is taking a more practical approach, knowing that not everyone will adhere to the government’s requests. This has been clear over the past few weeks with several instances of people breaking quarantine for non-essential reasons across the country.
States like Karnataka went a step further as they published addresses of all home-quarantine users in the middle of March. Kerala has resorted to using drones to set up surveillance across remote corners and disperse crowds or gatherings as a consequence. Now Mumbai and Delhi are also following Kerala's lead and using drones to monitor people and communicate with them.
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