App to file complaints on civic issues
■ It has option to re- submit complaint in case of no response ◗ Called NoWhinge, the app comes with a tracking option for the user to see how the authorities react to the complaint
A group students of from Indraprastha Institute of Technology, Delhi ( IIIT- D) has developed a mobile application that would help general public to file complaints regarding civic issues with the government departments and getting them resolved.
After the complaint is registered on the app, it would be automatically analysed by the software and forwarded to the concerned department.
The mobile app, called NoWhinge, comes with a tracking option for the complainant to see how and when the authorities are reacting to his/ her complaint. It also provides the option of re- submitting of a complaint in case of recurring problems or non- responsiveness of authorities towards a complaint.
There is also a locality analysis feature that can be used to investigate the types of problems faced by the people in that locality and the response time of various authorities that handle the civic amenities in that area.
A team of five students — Akash deep, Ishbir Walia, Karan Dabas, Manshul V Belani, and Raunak Sinha — have designed the application.
The app was built after interviewing several users multiple times to ascertain its feasibility and to get feedback on the interface and its functionalities. The students also plan to link social media to the problems to bring more attention to them.
With the app currently in its testing phase, the students hope to get support from government agencies. The members said that they require the support from agencies that handle public grievances so as to help them in understanding their expectations from such a system and also collaborate with them to provide a hassle free experience to the end user. Debates over the safety of women have kicked up a dust, but done little to ensure their security, students and professionals say, stressing nothing has changed in the national capital after the 2012 brutal gangrape that briefly sparked some soul- searching and led to a new law.
Delhi reported 15,319 cases of crimes against women in 2014, 17,222 in 2015 and 15,310 in 2016, data collected by the National Crime Records Bureau stated.
It won the dubious sobriquet of the “national capital of rape” when the city registered the maximum number of 1,996 rape cases in the country in 2016, up from 1,893 in 2015.
But women stressed that little had changed since people came out to the streets in protest against the rape and death of a paramedical intern in 2012.
“Ask any girl, and she would tell you what happens with us daily in public spaces. People stare at our body, they wrongly brush past us, we are subjected to abuse and we get intimidated,” said a 23- year- old MA student, who did not wish to be identified.
These violations occurred in places that ranged from Metro rains and DTC buses to shopping malls and colleges, she said. And they took place on social media sites.
“I was even threatened on FB for not reciprocating to somebody’s sexual advances.”
“Nothing has changed after six years. The only change, perhaps, is that the situation has worsened,” said the postgraduate student, advocating death penalty for rapists.