Bengaluru civic authorities have begun testing AI technology to identify and track potholes, waste black spots, footpath encroachments, streetlight problems, construction debris, illegal optical-fibre cables and unauthorised advertisements across the South city corporation limits.
Municipal commissioner K.N. Ramesh said the pilot was intended to ensure that civic problems are quickly reported to the relevant officials and resolved. A special workshop was organised for civic marshals and junior health inspectors to support the operation of the new system.
The pilot is being implemented in collaboration with Chitragupta Urban Technologies Private Limited. During the previous month, a vehicle fitted with AI cameras surveyed 150 kilometres of the 311 kilometres of main and sub-main roads under the corporation’s jurisdiction. The vehicle travelled along the roads and automatically identified civic issues, generating individual problem ticket numbers.
The survey created 2,000 tickets, of which around 1,000 related to waste and waste black spots. The commissioner has instructed officials to resolve the identified waste-related tickets within the next 10 days. The remaining tickets cover issues such as potholes, footpath encroachments, construction waste and unauthorised cables, according to the information shared during the workshop.
To manage waste-related complaints, the company has developed a mobile application called Anveshak. The application will make ward-level waste problems visible to the concerned junior health inspectors and marshals. Officials are required to check the details assigned to them on the application dashboard, visit the location and take corrective action.
A ticket can be closed only after the problem has been resolved and a geo-tagged photograph has been uploaded from within a maximum radius of 50 metres from the location where the issue was recorded. The system is designed to link the closure of a complaint to evidence from the site rather than relying only on an administrative update.
The AI-camera vehicle is scheduled to revisit previously recorded locations every 30 days. These inspections will be used to verify earlier tickets and generate tickets for new problems. The recurring survey is intended to create a continuing record of civic conditions across the roads covered by the pilot.
The civic administration will decide whether to extend the system across the entire corporation area after assessing the pilot’s performance and the effectiveness of the staff using it. The announcement does not specify the total cost of the pilot, the performance timeline for each category of complaint or the mechanism through which residents can directly access the tickets.
The pilot places responsibility for identifying problems, assigning them to field staff and recording their closure within a single technology-enabled workflow. Its immediate test will be whether the 1,000 waste-related tickets are resolved within the 10-day deadline and whether the subsequent 30-day inspections accurately identify unresolved or newly recurring problems.
