Kolkata, March 24 (IANS): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is active on Twitter, lauded the Twitter Samvad initiative launched by the social media platform in collaboration with the Indian government on Tuesday.

Twitter Samvad will allow people to receive tweets as SMSes from government offices, including the Prime Minister's Office.

"We congratulate @TwitterIndia team for introducing #TwitterSamvad #alerts," Banerjee tweeted.

The service was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his meeting in New Delhi with Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo.

Costolo told media persons after the meeting that "based on Indian technological innovation, Twitter Samvad is dedicated and specially built for the largest democracy of the world".

The event came on a day the Supreme Court upheld social media users' freedom of expression as guaranteed by the Constitution, by striking down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

As of now, 16 government offices, including the railway ministry, Bengaluru police and the chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal are participating in Twitter Samvad, powered by Bengaluru-based ZipDial, which was recently acquired by Twitter.