Mayorji, Bengaluru’s IT industry can do these for free – want to take them up?

November 13, 2013 Ashwin Mahesh

The Mayor feels IT industry has not done enough for Bengaluru. Sir, here are four things that IT can do for the city quickly.

(a) Digitise the property records in the city, and host them online, so that everyone can see who is paying taxes, who is not, and how much. Likewise, digitise the records of government properties, spatially, and put them up online.

(b) Digitise the records of all public works, including the history of works on each road, and put them up.

(c) Digitise file movement in the BBMP, so that the routine work of the agency becomes easily trace-able.

(d) Put up the agenda of Council meetings two days ahead of each meeting, and ask the public to give their opinion on the subjects being discussed. Likewise, publish the meetings of all ward committee meetings, and send them out electronically to resident associations, ward-wise.

I’m sure there are many more ideas that we can all think up together, Mayorji. I suggested all these things to your leaders when your party was in power, Sir. But they seemed shocked at the idea.

I’m glad you have woken up to the many possibilities of technology, and I look forward to seeing you do any one of these in your remaining term. I’ll find you a minimum of hundred IT volunteers to work on each of these projects.

Double or quits?

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About Ashwin Mahesh 96 Articles
Ashwin Mahesh has been involved in public policy for Bengaluru through his work with the Karnataka government. The views expressed here are his own. He is a member of the Lok Satta party. He is also CEO of Mapunity Information Services, and a director at Oorvani Media, publisher of Citizen Matters and India Together. He is also a visiting faculty with the Centre for Public Policy at IIM Bangalore.

1 Comment

  1. There are several slums existing in Bangalore for the last 50 years egs. Sriramapura wherein recently our Mayor visited, can these slums be adopted by KHB (Karnataka Housing Board) and make apartments on EMI and make them a comfortable living. Though IT industry has generated good revenue to Govt. but can they create a slum eradication on par with JNNURM funds which is implemented in some states. The standard of slums in some of the locality is worse especially during rainy season. What best IT sector can contribute for this?.

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