India's pothole problem could soon be solved, thanks to IIM-B
Almost as long as India has had pucca roads, we have dealt with the pothole problem and the package deal it comes with- road accidents, water-logging, traffic jams, etc. While potholes may not just vanish, it might become easier to report potholes to concerned authorities and hold them accountable. Four students of IIM Bangalore have conceptualized a road-rating system that might do the trick.
You could soon rate roads like you rate Uber/Ola drivers
A four-member team from IIM-B created a road-rating system which won at a Case Study Competition organized by the Indian Road Safety Campaign at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. The competition is supported by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), NITI Aayog and United Nations Institute of Training and Research (UNITAR), under iSAFE 18- The Safer India Challenge, from May 30-31.
Students wanted to put IIM-B studies to improve public policy
The team comprised Ajai Rao, Arti Pateriya, Harish Sudarshan and Sreejit Ramakumar, all aged 29 and students of the Executive Post Graduate Programme in Management (EPGP) batch of 2019-20. The team said they want to put their IIMB-acquired knowledge to improve public policy.
Proposal won among 221 registrations
The proposed app will be linked to Google, Uber or Ola, so people could rate roads on the basis of how pothole-ridden they are. The team said it will also be linked to the mParivahan interface, which has details of contractors, facilitating swift redressal of complaints. The proposal won among a total of 221 registrations through three rounds of evaluation.
'With 5L volunteers a year, India could be pothole-free'
"Although there are apps to rate roads, they're all separate, which dilutes accountability." Pateriya told The Times of India, "The mParivahan app has only six lakh downloads. We've proposed a single platform to rate a road and launch a complaint." Sudarshan added that with five lakh volunteers a year, one would only have to fix five potholes a month, eradicating potholes for good.
9,300 died in pothole-related accidents between 2015-2017
According to figures released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways last year, between the years 2015 and 2017, over 9,300 people died, while 25,000 were injured in road accidents related to potholes. In 2017 alone, 3,597 people died because of pothole-related accidents.
