JOIN USTo help scores of cash-strapped Bengalureans who have been standing in serpentine queues in front of ATM centres to withdraw cash, Whitefield Rising (WR) volunteers and MapsHalli have come out with an app to provide information on ATMs that are dispensing cash.
‘MapsHalli ATM Finder’, the Google-map based application that can be accessed on mobile phone or computer by clicking on https://atm.mapshalli.org/ enables one to locate the ATMs that are dispensing cash, ones that are not dispensing cash and ATMs whose status is unknown.
“Around 400 ATM centres across the city have been tagged on to Google Maps by citizens and WR volunteers since Monday evening. Apart from locating and checking the status of ATMs, people can help tag ATMs and update their status, by filling in the questionnaire appearing on the pop-up box. The queries include name of the bank; is the ATM dispensing cash with options - yes, no, do not know; number of people standing in queue among others,” said Shiv Shankar, a city-based entrepreneur and founder of web-based application MapsHalli.
Residents of Yelahanka, BTM Layout, Maruthi Sevanagar, Attiguppe, Indiranagar, Lingarajapuram among others have so far tagged the ATMs and updated their status.
Elan Kulandaivelu, a WR volunteer said that he along with fellow volunteers discussed the idea of bringing out a solution to help people locate ATMs easily.
“Later, we spoke to Shiv Shankar and developed the app. Any citizen can add ATMs or modify the status of the existing ones,” he said.
Shiv Shankar said that it took 10 hours to develop the app and locate the ATMs, starting from Monday.
Colour codes
The ATMs tagged on to the Google map are indicated by four different colours, with Rupee symbol on the ATM icon. The ATMs that are dispensing cash for the last two hours are shown in green, yellow indicates ATMs dispensing cash two hours ago, grey shows ATMs whose status is not known and red indicates ATMs that are not dispensing cash.
DH News Service