With an aim to provide correct and complete information amid the confusion of the pandemic, MyGov and Ministry of Health had launched the public and official “MyGov Corona Helpdesk” chatbot on WhatsApp. Now, the service has crossed 30 million users in India, becoming one of the largest Covid helpline on WhatsApp. This has been thanks to the growing concern of COVID 19, as well as the need for information regarding the new vaccination drive that has brought hope to the masses.
According to WhatsApp officials, the bot has processed over 45 million conversations on WhatsApp from users across the country with more than 67 million messages sent.
According to the officials, the service grew its user base since the Prime Minister of India promoted the service.
Here is what Abhishek Singh, CEO, MyGov and Digital India had to say about the development, “Through its one-year journey, MyGov Corona Helpdesk has evolved into a vaccination interactive system and is also giving key information about Co-WIN. I congratulate Team MyGov, Haptik, our Technical Partner and the WhatsApp team on completion of one year of MyGov Corona Helpdesk. The labour of collective hard work has resulted in 3.15 crore users.”
The chatbot, which is powered by Artificial Intelligence and developed in collaboration with start-up Haptik, was launched in March, approximately at the same time as when the lockdown was imposed. Over the year, it has developed from simply providing information about the virus and the precautions that had to be taken to an interactive system that also provides information regarding the vaccine, its centers and registration.
The bot has been launched for all WhatsApp users, in both English and Hindi. It provides the requested information in the form of a video, text, or infographic. The Chatbot can be reached by initiating a conversation on WhatsApp with the number provided by the government. It then answers any relevant query, and shared FAQs with the users.
While the users had started dwindling towards the end of last year, they have surged again owing to the confusion about the vaccine as well as the growing number of COVID cases in India once again. To talk to the bot and get verified information, you can save the WhatsApp number, +91 9013151515 on your smartphone and send a “Hi” message to it yourself.
