Pranab Mukherjee launches NETA app, says democracy can't work without informed voters

The app, founded by Pratham Mittal, allows voters to rate their political representatives. The aim is to foster political accountability by being an early indicator of how a leader's performance is being perceived by voters



A good democracy cannot work without informed voters, good leaders and complete transparency and accountability, said former president Pranab Mukherjee on Friday, as he launched a rating app, NETA, at his residence.

The app, founded by Pratham Mittal, allows voters to rate their political representatives. The aim is to foster political accountability by being an early indicator of how a leader's performance is being perceived by voters.

The app, launched on Friday, had been running in the beta mode for the last eight months, during which the Karnataka elections were also conducted.

According to Mittal, 93 percent of the leaders who had the highest ratings actually ended up winning in the Karnataka elections.

The company claims that over 1.5 crore verified voters have already rated or reviewed their local leaders across all 543 parliamentary constituencies and 4,120 assembly constituencies in the country on the app.

It targets to have 100 million users on the platform before 2019 elections.

In order to ensure participation across demographies, including the rural areas, the app uses multiple mediums like IVR calls, SMS and even offline activations with the help of Aashawadi and Aanganwadi workers.

The company, however, has no immediate plans to monetise the business.

"We do not have a monetisation plan. Right now, we do not have too many expenses. We just want to build credibility. Monetisation will come down the road," Mittal told Moneycontrol. "But we will not go to business houses or political parties. We will figure out other ways. For example, we will work with media organisations. If we have this data, may be we can share it with media houses in exchange of a small licensing fee," he added.

The company has been funded by friends and family and has no plans to raise an institutional round. Both his parents run the Lovely Professional University. His father, Ashok Mittal, is the  chancellor while mother Rashmi is the pro-chancellor of the university.

Mittal holds a Bachelors degree in engineering and political science from the University of Pennsylvania. Before launching NETA, he founded Outgrow, a growth marketing platform that enables marketers to build interactive content or tools to increase customer engagement and boost demand generation.