How to fix a power,water or road problem online

In its beta stage now,ichangemycity will allow citizens to point a cursor on a map on their phone or computer to any locality in their city,automatically identify the people responsible for various civic services — roads,water,power,sanitation — and register a complaint online.

“In India most urban people don’t know what to do about a civic problem. Most of the time you just say it’s another pothole and go on,” says Subramanyam Ivatury,co-ordinator of Janagraaha’s online programs.

“Ichangemycity’s first step is about what to do if you want to fix a problem. If you take an area and point it on a map,it will tell you which civic agency has jurisdiction,the address,contacts. Secondly it allows you to complain,thirdly it allows a group to form,” he adds. “Individual complaints are not heeded. The platform allows 50-100 people to get together to complain about a common civic problem and work with agencies to find solutions.”

Ivatury,a former top executive with Oracle,says,“If you want to get reach,there is no better way than technology. With mobile proliferation at nearly 800 million in India,we are trying to get our online platforms more for cellphones than just the internet.”

The ichangemycity venture is a spinoff of Janaagraha’s two-year-old ipaidabribe venture,which has attempted to crowd-source stories of corruption from around India and create collections that can be used to bring pressure on departments concerned. It assures anonymity for both givers and receivers.

Started originally as an experiment by Janagraha founders Ramesh Ramanathan and Swati Ramanathan to understand if there is a market price for corruption across cities and departments,the site has so far got 18,000 reports. This may not reflect the spread of bribe demands,but Ivatury says it gives a rough idea of where things might be really bad.

“It is still the world’s biggest resource of crowd-sourced,corruption experiences database,” he says. “We are not interested in whether you paid a bribe to a,b or c,or who you are. Individuals are not important to us. The system at the back end flushes out all identities,names and IP addresses. What is important is the place where the bribe has taken place,the amount and the department.”

Ipaidabribe has found popularity internationally and a group in Kenya has created its own site with the assistance of Janaagraha,says Ivatury.

“Right now we have requests from some 17 countries to replicate ipaidabribe for them. We have created a consortium of partners with whom we have an agreement to share intellectual property. We are willing to handhold them and give some of our best practices.”