New Delhi, Dec 24 (IANS): The External Affairs Ministry has crossed another milestone in its extensive use of social media when its Twitter handle @IndianDiplomacy crossed the one million followers mark.

"The cherry on the top of a year of digital milestones! Our @IndianDiplomacy account crosses 1 million followers," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted.

Earlier this year, the ministry won a Digital India Award for its innovative use of the social media.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj herself has acquired a global reputation for using social media to help Indians in distress abroad or for people who need anything related to her ministry. She has 6.8 million followers on Twitter.

On Friday, the ministry launched a new service called Twitter Seva that will enable timely, transparent and large-scale response to citizens' tweets in real time.

The Twitter Seva service will be supported by 198 Twitter accounts of Indian missions abroad and 29 regional passport offices.

It is an effective mechanism to respond to public queries and grievances that helps process large volumes of tweets, converts these to resolvable tickets and assigns these to the relevant authority for real-time resolution.