On the occasion of the 61st anniversary of India's independence, the Lok Sabha, keeping pace with the country's progress in information technology, has decided to M-power its communications and connectivity processes. Partnering with ValueFirst, a leading provider of enterprise mobile messaging services, the Lower House of the Indian Parliament has installed a unique system through which it can be in constant touch with its members during "sessions" and "no session" periods using SMS.

The Lok Sabha Secretariat, acting on behalf of the House recognised that the need of the hour was to have a simple way of bridging the gap of communicating critical and routine messages from the Secretariat to members and general public, overcoming the limitation of physical meetings and reducing miscommunication.

On this occasion, Vijay Shukla, Country Head and Co-founder, ValueFirst said, "It is an absolute honour to be servicing the Lok Sabha. We have a wide range of clients but this one is truly special as it gives us the opportunity to serve the country through our technology. The step taken by the Lok Sabha to improve communications using state-of-the-art technology is truly an indication of the all-round progress that India is making."

The Secretariat will be able to take advantage of the high penetration of mobile phones amongst members coupled with the non-intrusive nature of SMS, by implementing the advanced mobile messaging services provided by ValueFirst to send messages to multiple mobile phones covering all service providers in India. The Lok Sabha Secretariat will use the messaging services of ValueFirst to communicate with internal stakeholders and public alike with critical information directly, using this service. All communication to the media will also be sent through this system. This is the fastest one-to-many mode of communication where the message is delivered and received in real time, without the hazards of any alterations, miscommunication etc along with the proof of delivery to the recipient or the reason for failure, as the case may be.

After a thorough examination of the existing IT infrastructure of the House, ValueFirst implemented its best-in-class mobile messaging application, ValueFirst Velocity. ValueFirst Velocity is an enterprise class SMS suite designed to create, process and transmit SMS in a complex database environment. It provides a highly reliable mobile messaging platform. The mobile messaging suite in addition, offers complete automation of various communication processes of Parliament of India.

ValueFirst provides such services to more than 850 enterprises across the country. It has recently also partnered with the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) for similar services for the party- members communication.