Was Policy Changed to Accommodate Paytm on Govt Appstore?
Image Courtesy: The Economic Times
The Mobile Seva Appstore of the Ministry of Information and Technology is currently inviting “mobile applications related to public service” to be hosted on the government’s application store. At present, the only private application on this store is Paytm.
A perusal of the apps.mgov.gov.in shows that the apps are mostly those concerned with government departments – those that aid with news of the weather, agriculture-related news or inputs, for finding out stock availability at the local public distribution outlet of the Andhra Pradesh government and several other such apps that were developed by departments or other organs of the government.
Paytm was removed from Google’s Play Store for just a few hours on September 18, 2020, for alleged gambling operations.
According to a Techcrunch report: “Google said that Play Store prohibits online casinos and other unregulated gambling apps that facilitate sports betting in India. Paytm, which has promoted a fantasy sports service within its marquee app, repeatedly violated Play Store’s policies, two people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. Paytm’s fantasy sports service, called Paytm First Games, was also available as a standalone app, which has been pulled from the Play Store, too.” The report was later updated to inform readers that Paytm was back on Play Store.
In October 2020, Neeraj Sharma, a resident of New Delhi, filed a Right to Information application with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, seeking information on how Paytm was hosted by the government site.
His application asked about when Paytm was first uploaded on the government site, certified copies of all communication from the government for hosting the site on Mobile Sewa, noting and guidelines that show procedure for hosting such apps and minutes of meetings in which the decision was taken.
Sharma was informed that the date of uploading or hosting the site on the government platform was September 25, 2020. He was provided with only one line from the minutes of a CDAC meeting, with the rest of the document redacted. It read: “CDAC to allow hosting of government applications that are developed by private developers on behalf of various government departments, as well as other important and relevant private apps developed for public purposes on the Mobile Sewa Appstore.”
What this communication suggests is that government policy was seemingly changed to accommodate the sole private player. It is noteworthy that the morning after demonetisation, on November 8, 2016, newspaper readers woke up to large front-page advertisements on several national newspapers from Paytm featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi, congratulating him for the “boldest decision in the financial history of independent India!” Incidentally, over 100 deaths occurred as people queued up to change notes and the banking system ran out of legal tender; Paytm, however, benefited, as people were left with little choice but to download the app when cash supply was hit.
Sharma had sought a certified copy of the government agreement with Paytm Mobile App, which was rejected on the grounds that this was “Third Party information protected under section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, 2005.”
Sharma told NewsClick: “As a citizen, I’m surprised that private apps have been suddenly allowed on a government App store which previously allowed only apps developed by government departments. The first private app on the government site is Paytm, and we know that 40% of its stock shareholding is with Alibaba Group, a Chinese company. Paytm has seen controversy before, and we remember that news report of Paytm being asked to share personal data with the Prime Minister’s Office. There is reasonable cause to suspect that with Paytm apps on the government Appstore, people will use it assuming they are using a government service. If an issue arises then, who will be responsible? And why is CDAC hiding information?”
Paytm, headquartered in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, is India’s most valuable startup company. Founded in August 2010, One97 Communications, makers of e-commerce platform Paytm Mall, was valued at $16 billion in June 2020.
The author is an independent journalist.
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