Aarogya Setu app crosses 30 Mn downloads on Jio feature phones

Indian government-owned Covid-19 tracing app Aarogya Setu has crossed 30 million downloads on Reliance Industries’ Jio feature phones within a month of launch.

It took less than 30 days for the app to cross the above mark after the Ministry of Electronics and Information (MeitY) had rolled out a version of Aarogya Setu for 5 million Jio feature phones on May 15.

The launch of the app on feature phones was a part of the government’s move to put a large section of the population under its ambit.

Since Aarogya Setu has continuously been promoted by the government at every level to track the spread of coronavirus in India while Jio also being one of the significant leaders in the feature phone segment in India, the spurt in the number of downloads was expected. 

Launched in April, Aarogya Setu is widely used across the nation by private and government sector employees along with train and air travelers. It has also recently made it to the top 10 list on the global chart of most downloaded apps in the non-gaming category for the second consecutive month in May. 

While Aarogya Setu was the only Indian app that had made its position in the top 10 list in May, the app has also amassed over 116 million downloads across Android and iOS.

However, the app had continuously been under criticism from activists, opposition parties, and several organizations over privacy issues as well as the absence of any legal framework since its launch. For such rising concerns, it has recently been made open source by the government.

With around 115 million users on the platform, Aarogya Setu is currently the first of its kind app to open-source its code for such a large user base.