Encroachment worries? Here's some online help

Is your property, or a property you are planning to buy, located on a storm-water drain? A website and an app now help you find out.

Rajakaluve.org, an initiative by the Real Estate Research Initiative of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB-RERI), traces the city's storm-water drains so that property owners can escape the financial, legal and social costs of demolition later on.

The website requires users to have details like survey number, village, hobli and taluk, as in the registration document.

"It integrates publicly available data from the BBMP," says Prof Venkatesh Panchapagesan, faculty, IIM-B, and Chairperson IIMB-RERI.

Rajakaluve.org has collaborated with Mapshalli, a citizen initiative, and provides links to their website.

However, Mapshalli is limited in scope at the moment and covers a small number of villages in and around the Whitefield area, leaving the bulk of the city out of its scope.

In case of encroachment, Venkatesh advises owners to reach out to the revenue department or engage legal help.

Real-estate risk assessment firm ZippServ has come up with a similar service based on Google Maps.

Called ZippServ Protect, the app's aim is to help Bengalureans assess information and evaluate properties.

The tool too makes use of information provided in BBMP's revenue map to mark rajakaluves and lake encroachments.

"We have also come up with an app called PricePoint which displays actual registered sale prices of properties in a particular area. This way, property buyers can see the current property rates in different circles of the city," says Sudeep, CEO, Zippserv.