Comments
Tired of complaining about potholes or open manholes and getting no response from urban local bodies? Mapping could be your answer.
Making one such attempt is MapmyIndia. It is working on mapping small things such as potholes/ open manholes in a city or a locality so that citizens can provide the info directly to concerned authorities or officials or the local MLA, by sending the map by tweeting/ Facebooking the exact location.
Speaking to BusinessLine , Rohan Verma, Director, MapmyIndia, said: “In India making smart cities is a misnomer — a lot of people are involved — there is no panacea. There is no — one Prime Minister/ Chief Minister, Party/ MLA or municipal corporation, who will solve it. So, why don’t we be very specific and spot a specific problem at a very specific location and report?”
He said the company is developing such mapping technology through its AppmyIndia app platform so that one can directly post or report an exact problem to the concerned authorities. For example, one can say “at this point (on the map) this is the issue (pothole)” — literally by marking the pothole. Reporting or putting across that marking means one has reported the problem. Once that’s done, the relevant people or authority would automatically come to solve the problem and once it’s done, the app will also indicate if the problem is solved, on the map itself, Verma said.
Enabling governance“Such app-based maps and GPS data would help the government/ authorities in a big way and make it actionable. That is what we are focusing on right now (apart from navigation),” he said.
Optimistic outlookAsked about any tender or deal the company has gotten, Verma said it has bagged some deals in the recent past human mapping/ tracking of Ambala Municipal Corporation’s safai karamcharis, from the Haryana government.
The company hopes to garner more customers and users on its platform as it already has with big names such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Maruti Suzuki India, Renault India and Tata Motors in the automobile space, and Ola Cabs and Amazon Prime in the online space, Verma said.
“What milestone is on the way in future we don’t know, but right now our focus is how to make cities smarter, citizens smarter, cars smarter and apps through our in-house technologies,” Verma added.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.