Crowd-sourcing seems to have found takers in the government. Planning Commission has organised an app programming event, commonly known as "hackathon" which will see programmers from all over the country come together to develop web and mobile applications which could "support the initiatives outlined in the Plan or educate about the focus area of the Plan". 

The online 'hackathon', organised by the Planning Commission and national innovations council is a two-day crowd-sourcing programme which seeks online submission of illustrations and short films conveying the benefit and message of the 12th plan. The inaugural session also saw academicians and students from ten premier institutes including IITs and IISc, putting questions to deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia. 

Replying to a query from a participant from Jammu University, on the implementation of plan at grassroots and need for greater accountability, Ahluwalia said that all government funds are subjected to accountability checks. He said that the commission has formed an independent evaluation organisation to assess the implementation of programmes. 

The plan panel chief said that the union government was working to provide greater flexibility to the state planning commissions.

On being asked about India’s falling growth rate, Ahluwalia said that though India’s current growth rate had falled to 5 percent, it is still better off than US (growing at a rate of 2 percent), Japan (0 percent). Of the BRICS countries, Brazil has registered a growth rate of 2.5 percent and Russia 4.5 percent.

The deadline for submission of visualisations, short films and web and mobile app is tomorrow before noon. The shortlisted submissions will be awarded by the commission.