Modi govt bets big on Twitter

Modi, one of the most tech savvy of politicians, made the Bharatiya Janata Party tech savvy much before the party came to power. He is now doing the same with the government, pushing the use of social media for information dissemination.

When Modi formed government on March 26, nearly 90% of his ministry was already on social networking. The prime minister made it clear that social media was set to be the medium to take their word instantly to the people.

BJP ministers are now using their own Twitter handles and Facebook pages as well as the official Twitter handle of Press Information Bureau (PIB) to communicate with the people.

The connecting with people does not end there. The government is also studying the impact of the tweets and social media trends.

According to official sources, a report is to be compiled every day on the trends on Twitter and other social networking sites. The report is to be submitted to the prime minister's Officer (PMO), home ministry and other ministries.

"Since social networking is being used in a big way, its impact assessment is also necessary. So far some ministries have been doing this at a small level for individual topics. We will soon have a proper mechanism for such kind of assessment," a government official told IANS, requesting anonymity.

Among the ministries that have already undertaken impact assessment of social media are the information and broadcasting ministry and external affairs ministry.

Modi has two twitter accounts, a personal one — @narendramodi with 4.8 million followers so far — and the other one as prime minister - @PMOIndia which has logged 1.61 million followers in less than a month since he became prime minister.