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BMC's pothole-tracking software likely to shut down

The high-tech pothole-tracking system, which costs the BMC around Rs60 lakh per year, allows citizens to upload photos of potholes and geo tag them.

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The next time you see a pothole, you might not be able to report it. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) famed pothole-tracking software is all set to be shut down. In what is being seen as a setback for transparency and citizen empowerment, the civic body has not extended its contract with the software developer which ended in November. "The firm's contract ended in November this year. They had sought an extension but we have not extended their contract," a senior civic official said. The popular pothole tracking portal voiceofcitizen.com was launched in 2011.

The high-tech pothole-tracking system, which costs the BMC around Rs60 lakh per year, allows citizens to upload photos of potholes and geo tag them. Once a photo is uploaded, a civic road engineer is assigned the job of ensuring that the contractor concerned fixes it within 48 hours. Failure to do so results in the engineer being penalised. With Probitysoft Pvt. Ltd., which owns the software, set to pull the plug, citizens are unhappy. "It is one of the only good initiatives that BMC has introduced in the last few years. It empowers citizens. The BMC spends so much money of unnecessary things anyway," said Makrand Narwekar, citizen corporator from Colaba. In May this year, the Bombay High Court (HC) pronounced its order in a suo motu PIL taken up by it in 2013, highlighting the plight of motorists and pedestrians in Mumbai given the "pathetic"' condition of its potholed roads.

The HC stated that the BMC should provide a mechanism for citizens to complain about poor road conditions through mails and photos at designated centres, toll free numbers, and dedicated websites and SMS services through the year. "We will now float tenders for the pothole-tracking software. We were giving out the contracts without tenders. Technically, Probity can shutdown the software anytime," the official added. Officials said that a call on setting up a new mechanism for tracking potholes would be taken by BMC chief Ajoy Mehta. 

Shantanu Kulkarni, owner of Probity, refused to comment but confirmed that the contract period had ended. In 2012, BMC had even received an award from a Bangalore-based non-profit organisation, Janaagraha Centre, for Citizenship and Democracy for its online pothole-tracking software. Additional municipal commissioner SVR Srinivas, in-charge of roads, could not be reached for comment. "If the BMC is floating tenders, it is good. However, they should have done it before the existing contract ended," said Sandip Deshpande, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena group leader in the civic body.
 

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