Aarogya Setu becomes world’s fastest app to reach 5 crore downloads

New Delhi, Apr 16: The Government's mobile app Aarogya Setu, developed for tracking coronavirus patients, has become the world's fastest app to reach 5 crore downloads in just 13 days, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address to the nation on April 14 appealed to people to download the app.

"Telephone took 75 years to reach 50 million users, radio 38 yrs, television 13 yrs, Internet 4 yrs, Facebook 19 months, Pokemon Go 19 days. AarogyaSetu, India's app to fight COVID-19 has reached 50 mn users in just 13 days-fastest ever globally for an App," Kant said in his tweet.

The Aarogya Setu app alerts people if any person in their vicinity has tested positive for COVID-19.

District administrations have been asking all educational institutions and government departments to push people to download the app. The more people install the app on their phones, the more effective it becomes at identifying through location data and Bluetooth data, which phones have come into close contact with an infected person.

The app accesses data of infected persons from the Ministry of Health and alerts people if they have come into contact with a Covid-19 infected person.

According to sources, Tata Consultancy Services is working on testing the app and some of its other aspects while Tech Mahindra and the Mahindra group is working on the next version of this application leveraging data science and next-generation technologies such as machine learning.

Tech Mahindra is also working on expanding the reach of Aarogya Setu to all types of phones. The current version of Aarogya Setu app is fit for use on smartphones only.