Meity’s DigiLocker fails as users complain of bug issues time and again
By Shivani Verma
Bengaluru: Ever since the launch of the DigiLocker application in 2015 by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity), Government of India, over 30,000 critical reviews regarding bug and login issues are found in PlayStore alone.
“There hasn’t been a day when I was able to log in without any hassle. As usual, the app gives wrong un/pw error, even though I am able to log in to the app with the same login credentials. The web version, however, doesn’t open my folders. So basically both, the app and the web version of this service do not work. I don’t know how people even use this app. Even after so many years, developers have failed miserably in fixing the basic login issues, in spite of reporting it multiple times. Absolutely pathetic services,” reviewed Vince Mcnaught on PlayStore.
DigiLocker is a key initiative under Digital India, the Government of India’s flagship program aimed at transforming India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. It is a platform for issuing and verifying documents and certificates digitally , thus eliminating the use of physical documents. The app was launched by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in order to promote paperless governance.
Ankit Sundarka, a DigiLocker user said, “The government aimed to go digital but this app doesn’t even work properly. It has so many bugs ,and the Government of India has taken no steps to improve on these issues. I am unable to access my documents as and when I need to.”
There are 30.94 million registered users of DigiLockersays the DigiLocker National Statistics. The State-Wise Registration Trends (for Aadhar linked accounts) data shows that Maharashtra has the highest number of users at 1444295, while Chandigarh is at the lowest with only 63 users. Whereas, Karnataka has 663044 users. There are 3.53 billion issued, authentic documents under DigiLocker. A total of 300 document types are part of the DigiLocker platform. There are also 137 organizations integrated with DigiLocker.
“There has always been a login issue since the launch of this application. Also, once you link your DigiLocker profile to a number, you can’t change the number later. There’s no provision for changing mobile number, which needs to be resolved. It should have an option to delete account/details created mistakenly,” Pruthvin, a Bangalore resident told The Softcopy.
Organizations that are registered with Digital Locker can push electronic copies of documents and certificates (e.g. driving license, Voter ID, School certificates) directly into its users’ lockers. Users can also upload scanned copies of their legacy documents into their accounts. These legacy documents can also be electronically signed using the eSign facility.
Kavita Bhatia, a director at Meity who works on matters related to digital division and artificial intelligence said, “All the grievances which are coming us through the RTI, we are resolving it. There are no grievances pending with us as of now.”
Through the DigiLocker platform, digital documents can be accessed by the citizens anytime and anywhere. What’s more, they can share them online too. It also aims to reduce administrative overhead of government departments by minimizing the use of paper. Self-uploaded documents can also be digitally signed using the eSign facility (which is similar to the process of self-attestation).
Shubhakar Ananth, a User Interface (UI) developer in Bangalore said, “The user interface of this application is simple, this allows the user to use the app swiftly and in a hassle-free way. However, it has a lot of bug issues relating to frequent authentication failures. Also, the application servers are down probably due to the high number of users. Meity should fix these minor bugs at the earliest for easy use of this application. Moreover, they should resolve the login issue by adding fingerprint or face recognition feature in the application.”
