Bengaluru: In a quiet corner of South Bengaluru, a digital civic movement is taking shape, born out of one man’s frustration with the city’s pothole-riddled streets. Software engineer Deepu (name changed) has developed a pothole-mapping platform that empowers residents to upload geotagged images of potholes across the city. These images are then plotted on a live digital map, accessible to everyone—from the public to BBMP engineers.“I stay in Kalena Agrahara, and driving every day on crater-riddled roads is a headache. Thousands of Bengaluru commuters face this problem daily. I complained to BBMP through their app, but no action was taken. I’ve seen complaints being closed without any response,” Deepu said. “So, being a software engineer, I thought, why not map these potholes? I created this public space for people to share the pictures of potholes,” he added.The platform, informally known as the Bengaluru Pothole Map, has already registered over 130 to 150 verified pothole submissions from across the city in a week. Each submission includes a photograph and auto-detected location data embedded in the image. When a user uploads an image, it goes through a moderation queue hosted on GitHub. Deepu verifies each submission to ensure accuracy, tags its severity level (minor, major, critical), and publishes it to a live map.The map is user-friendly. A red pin marks each pothole, and clicking on the pin reveals a live photo of the pothole. Users can see how many potholes are marked on the map, in which area, and the date of upload. The map is transparent, allowing everyone to view it.Unlike BBMP’s official portals, where users often complain about a lack of feedback or transparency, this platform offers visibility into both the problem and, if adopted, the solution. “We often don’t know if a pothole complaint has been acted upon, but imagine if BBMP engineers started uploading ‘after repair’ images to the same map. The data would speak for itself,” Deepu said. Deepu has open-sourced both the data and the platform’s code. “Anyone can replicate it in their city. It’s built to be shared,” he said. Deepu is also working on enabling Kannada support and dividing the city into zones so that moderators from each zone can vet entries and expand coverage.People’s projectWhile TOI asked if he is open to collaboration with BBMP, Deepu said: “They don’t even have to contact me. Just use the map. Click on the image, see the pothole, and fix it. Then upload a repair image. Simple. It makes the system accountable, and it shows that they care.”While the BBMP apps like ‘Fix My Street’ and WhatsApp helplines exist, many citizens have reported a lack of visibility into whether issues are being resolved. This new platform seeks to change that by making the entire process public, visual, and crowd-verifiable.Deepu’s inspiration came during the pandemic when his daily commute along Bannerghatta Road and near Meenakshi Mall became a daily obstacle course. “After Covid, things went downhill. Roads got worse. Even where there were repairs, they wouldn’t last beyond the next rainfall. This weekend, I’m doing a mapping drive around Dairy Circle. We’ll take 200–300 images. Eventually, I want various areas of the city to be managed by different moderators. BBMP doesn’t have to own it. This can be a people’s project,” he added.The tool is designed to be anonymous, with no personal details collected from users. “I don’t want to know who you are. I just want the potholes fixed. The platform checks image metadata, confirms it via Google Maps, and if it looks authentic, it goes live,” he said.With this initiative, Deepu hopes to not just map potholes but also shift how we view civic engagement. “If public work is happening in the public domain, then let it be documented publicly. That’s how we build trust,” he added. Bengaluru: In a quiet corner of South Bengaluru, a digital civic movement is taking shape, born out of one man’s frustration with the city’s pothole-riddled streets. Software engineer Deepu (name changed) has developed a pothole-mapping platform that empowers residents to upload geotagged images of potholes across the city. These images are then plotted on a live digital map, accessible to everyone—from the public to BBMP engineers.“I stay in Kalena Agrahara, and driving every day on crater-riddled roads is a headache. Thousands of Bengaluru commuters face this problem daily. I complained to BBMP through their app, but no action was taken. I’ve seen complaints being closed without any response,” Deepu said. “So, being a software engineer, I thought, why not map these potholes? I created this public space for people to share the pictures of potholes,” he added.The platform, informally known as the Bengaluru Pothole Map, has already registered over 130 to 150 verified pothole submissions from across the city in a week. Each submission includes a photograph and auto-detected location data embedded in the image. When a user uploads an image, it goes through a moderation queue hosted on GitHub. Deepu verifies each submission to ensure accuracy, tags its severity level (minor, major, critical), and publishes it to a live map.The map is user-friendly. A red pin marks each pothole, and clicking on the pin reveals a live photo of the pothole. Users can see how many potholes are marked on the map, in which area, and the date of upload. The map is transparent, allowing everyone to view it.Unlike BBMP’s official portals, where users often complain about a lack of feedback or transparency, this platform offers visibility into both the problem and, if adopted, the solution. “We often don’t know if a pothole complaint has been acted upon, but imagine if BBMP engineers started uploading ‘after repair’ images to the same map. The data would speak for itself,” Deepu said. Deepu has open-sourced both the data and the platform’s code. “Anyone can replicate it in their city. It’s built to be shared,” he said. Deepu is also working on enabling Kannada support and dividing the city into zones so that moderators from each zone can vet entries and expand coverage.People’s projectWhile TOI asked if he is open to collaboration with BBMP, Deepu said: “They don’t even have to contact me. Just use the map. Click on the image, see the pothole, and fix it. Then upload a repair image. Simple. It makes the system accountable, and it shows that they care.”While the BBMP apps like ‘Fix My Street’ and WhatsApp helplines exist, many citizens have reported a lack of visibility into whether issues are being resolved. This new platform seeks to change that by making the entire process public, visual, and crowd-verifiable.Deepu’s inspiration came during the pandemic when his daily commute along Bannerghatta Road and near Meenakshi Mall became a daily obstacle course. “After Covid, things went downhill. Roads got worse. Even where there were repairs, they wouldn’t last beyond the next rainfall. This weekend, I’m doing a mapping drive around Dairy Circle. We’ll take 200–300 images. Eventually, I want various areas of the city to be managed by different moderators. BBMP doesn’t have to own it. This can be a people’s project,” he added.The tool is designed to be anonymous, with no personal details collected from users. “I don’t want to know who you are. I just want the potholes fixed. The platform checks image metadata, confirms it via Google Maps, and if it looks authentic, it goes live,” he said.With this initiative, Deepu hopes to not just map potholes but also shift how we view civic engagement. “If public work is happening in the public domain, then let it be documented publicly. That’s how we build trust,” he added.
