The presence of Delhi Traffic Police on Facebook has already been covered by major newspapers such as New York Times and Hindustan Times . The page has seen success with 47,280 likes and 15,052 photo uploads (at the time of writing). Following them were other government departments such as Kanpur City Police and Municipal Corporation of Delhi but their pages being community pages lack a variety of features that Delhi Traffic Police page provides. Post Office India has also moved to the social media space by creating a Twitter handle – @PostOfficeIndia.

An interesting idea has been initiated by Planning Commission of India to go to the masses to find out what their expectations and ideas for the twelfth plan (2012-2017) are and then include them in their approach paper which would be then approved by the cabinet and National Development Council.

In this web based consultative process, they have invited suggestions via email and more interestingly via Facebook. They have setup a Facebook page titled ‘Twelfth Plan’ where users can post their ideas and suggestions for any or all of the points of consideration that are to be incorporated into the Approach Paper. To ensure transparency, the first draft of this report will be posted online in the first week of March.

The page, along with the separate website was launched by Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Speaking to reporters at the time of launch, he said –

The intention is not that we are going to necessarily respond to every suggestion. But very often I hear people say that you fellows in the Planning Commission just set up steering groups with your own buddies and people you’ve known, and you’re all over sixty years old and you have people of the same age and most of them don’t have a clue what’s really going on. We must have some mechanism of connecting.

While the Planning Commission of India has moved to social media to reach people outside the business groups and also give voice to people in villages and local bodies, I am skeptical of that happening. Facebook is prominent in major cities and small towns but the same cannot be said for rural areas where even Internet hasn’t penetrated as much as it should, despite the growth.

It’s a great concept and a very smart endeavor by the Planning Commission to get people involved in how the money is spent and policies are framed.

What do you think? Will it be able to achieve its desired motive and get people to put in their thoughts and ideas?