<p>Bengaluru: Ever struggled to fill a government form, unsure which hobli or village your home falls under? Or tried locating your nearest BWSSB service station?</p><p>A new online tool now makes it easier.</p><p>Called 'Civic Compass', the free platform provides details of local offices and department jurisdictions. Users simply enter their address to get comprehensive information.</p><p>For instance, entering an apartment’s address in RT Nagar shows it falls under the Bengaluru North City Corporation, North Zone 2, and Jaya Chamarajendra Nagar (JC Nagar) ward. The tool also lists the erstwhile BBMP zone and ward, BDA layout name and number, revenue classification, revenue office address, Bescom division and office, BWSSB division and service station, and nearby law and order and traffic police stations.</p><p>Developed by Zen Citizen, a volunteer-based organisation that helps citizens navigate bureaucracy and challenge petty corruption, the tool aims to make civic information easily accessible.</p><p>Founder Vineeta K said the idea came from a Reddit post.</p><p>"Someone asked, ‘What’s the DRO for Koramangala?’ This information was required to get an Encumbrance Certificate for an e-khata transfer. At first, it felt like a lazy question; surely this should be easy to Google? But to our bewilderment, it wasn’t."</p>.Karnataka High Court issues notice to state over JD(S) MLA’s plea on fund discrimination.<p>"Bangalore Urban is split into five District Registrar Offices (DROs) by the Department of Stamps and Registration, but there’s no way to figure out which one applies to you. To our horror, we also found there was no single place that helped citizens identify the jurisdiction for their area for essential services such as municipal services, electricity, water, and police. So, we decided to build one,” she said.</p>.<p>Getting accurate data from government departments was the toughest part, she added. The team filed multiple RTIs to gather information from agencies such as the BBMP and Bescom.</p>.<p>Data sources for the tool include OpenCity, Karnataka-GIS, and OpenStreetMap.</p>.<p>The team has open-sourced the tool’s code and shared an RTI application template to help make it easily adaptable for use in other cities.</p>.<p>The volunteers involved in making the tool are AN, Abhik, Nishith, and Priti Pandurangan.</p>.<p>Civic Compass will officially launch on November 13 and can be accessed at civic-compass.zencitizen.in.</p>
<p>Bengaluru: Ever struggled to fill a government form, unsure which hobli or village your home falls under? Or tried locating your nearest BWSSB service station?</p><p>A new online tool now makes it easier.</p><p>Called 'Civic Compass', the free platform provides details of local offices and department jurisdictions. Users simply enter their address to get comprehensive information.</p><p>For instance, entering an apartment’s address in RT Nagar shows it falls under the Bengaluru North City Corporation, North Zone 2, and Jaya Chamarajendra Nagar (JC Nagar) ward. The tool also lists the erstwhile BBMP zone and ward, BDA layout name and number, revenue classification, revenue office address, Bescom division and office, BWSSB division and service station, and nearby law and order and traffic police stations.</p><p>Developed by Zen Citizen, a volunteer-based organisation that helps citizens navigate bureaucracy and challenge petty corruption, the tool aims to make civic information easily accessible.</p><p>Founder Vineeta K said the idea came from a Reddit post.</p><p>"Someone asked, ‘What’s the DRO for Koramangala?’ This information was required to get an Encumbrance Certificate for an e-khata transfer. At first, it felt like a lazy question; surely this should be easy to Google? But to our bewilderment, it wasn’t."</p>.Karnataka High Court issues notice to state over JD(S) MLA’s plea on fund discrimination.<p>"Bangalore Urban is split into five District Registrar Offices (DROs) by the Department of Stamps and Registration, but there’s no way to figure out which one applies to you. To our horror, we also found there was no single place that helped citizens identify the jurisdiction for their area for essential services such as municipal services, electricity, water, and police. So, we decided to build one,” she said.</p>.<p>Getting accurate data from government departments was the toughest part, she added. The team filed multiple RTIs to gather information from agencies such as the BBMP and Bescom.</p>.<p>Data sources for the tool include OpenCity, Karnataka-GIS, and OpenStreetMap.</p>.<p>The team has open-sourced the tool’s code and shared an RTI application template to help make it easily adaptable for use in other cities.</p>.<p>The volunteers involved in making the tool are AN, Abhik, Nishith, and Priti Pandurangan.</p>.<p>Civic Compass will officially launch on November 13 and can be accessed at civic-compass.zencitizen.in.</p>