Month later,BMC pothole spotter hasn’t got a single complaint

Standing committee chairman and Sena corporator Rahul Shewale said not a single complaint has been made till now. The proposal had met with opposition also because only Android mobile handsets can be used to click pictures of potholes and upload it on the site http://www.voiceofcitizen.com.

Shantanu Kulkarni,director of Probity,the firm that developed the software being used by the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation,said initial delay occurred due to linkage issues. “The original website was available from Day One,but it is not a popular URL and we wanted to link it to BMC’s website. We managed to do that about two weeks back,but we still have not received a complaint due to lack of awareness among people. We are also working on the software that will enable Nokia phone users too to make use of this site,” he said.

The surveillance team of the BMC has been given smartphones from which they will have to click pictures of potholes and upload them on Google images. The software will then highlight the pothole locations which are unattended in red,and thereafter various stages of yellow and blue. The blue colour will mean the pothole has been repaired. Along with images of the potholes,the software will also show its exact location,mentioning the road’s name and ward where it exists.

Citizens too will be able to send in pothole images and lodge their complaints through their cell phones. The catch,however,is that the application is only supported by the Android cell phone operating technology with GPRS connection and no other phone can be used to click and upload pictures of the potholes.