Residents of Whitefield who are not sure whether their houses are encroaching on drains, can now put their doubts to rest.
Whitefield resident Shiv Shankar has developed an easy guide, through which maps about the drains can be accessed easily.
A citizen of Whitefield and volunteer of Whitefield Rising (WR), Shiv Shankar has come up with a web application ‘Mapshalli', that allows citizens to view the rajakaluves and secondary stormwater drains (SWD) with encroaching survey numbers (marked in red labels) and non-encroaching survey numbers (marked in green). If the survey number is marked in black then there are no storm water drains on the property. Anyone can access information by logging on to the website http://www.mapshalli.org/ and search for the desired location or browse the map.
One need not register or log in to use the site.
“They can search for the name of the apartment or locate it by using the name of the village and survey number mentioned in the sale deed. The site also has the rajakaluve encroachment list published by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike ( BBMP).
Presently, I have mapped 20 villages around Whitefield area including Whitefield, Hoody, Varthur, Balagere among others," Shiv Shankar, an entrepreneur, said.
Shankar felt the need to come up with a web application after he faced difficulty in accessing the encroachment details as it involved a lot of procedures.
“To access the files related to encroachments, it was mandatory to know the zone, village name and other details. Hence, to simplify the procedure, I created a web app that basically involves overlaying of survey maps accessed from BBMP on Google maps," pointed Shankar.
Shankar said that he wants to map the entire city eventually. He is currently looking for volunteers to help him cover the entire city.
Those willing to volunteer can get in touch with him at www.facebook.com/mapshalli/.