Bengaluru Techie Finds Civic Hack to Track Potholes, Internet Applauds

New Delhi: Bengaluru’s traffic is the stuff of memes, rants, and collective sighs. But what often goes unspoken is what lies beneath the chaos, literally. Potholes. Craters big enough to damage vehicles, injure riders, and test the patience of even the most seasoned commuter.

Amid this everyday frustration, a quiet civic-tech revolution has emerged.

A Bengaluru techie, Shantanu Goel, recently discovered an anonymously built website that lets people upload and geotag images of potholes across the city. Sharing a screenshot of the platform, blr-potholes.pages.dev, he wrote on X, “Someone created this with the intent to make the roads safer in Bengaluru. I hope they are not persecuted by the machinery instead. Also, this should be called a crater, not a pothole!”

The tool is simple, public, and potentially powerful. Titled Bengaluru Live Potholes Map, it aims to crowdsource real-time data about the city's battered roads, creating a visual tracker of ignored civic issues that citizens face daily.

This discovery comes months after Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar had issued a 15-day deadline to BBMP to fix the city’s potholes. He announced that 2,795 potholes were identified and ₹660 crore allocated to repair them. “I asked the BBMP commissioner to fill all the potholes in Bengaluru in the next 15 days,” Shivakumar had said, promising to personally inspect the roads afterward.

But even in 2025, many of those potholes remain. Which is why this platform feels timely, and why it’s resonating with citizens online.

Netizens Applaud the Initiative, Call It ‘True Bengaluru Spirit’

Netizens have praised the unknown creator for blending civic concern with tech skills. “I would love for a weekly report to be sent to the local municipal offices,” one user wrote. Another added, “He’s gonna disappear for mysterious reasons soon,” hinting at the often uncomfortable relationship between citizen activism and red tape. One comment read “These are the kinds of things we should be expecting from Bengaluru and its strong dev presence”.

As of now, there's no word on whether BBMP or city officials have acknowledged the initiative. But one thing’s clear: Bengalureans aren’t just tweeting about the potholes, they’re mapping them. And maybe, just maybe, fixing them won't be far behind.

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