PowerCuts.IN is an initiative to crowdsource information about Power Cuts in India and highlight the common issues around energy demand & supply, it effects on the common man & escalate unheard voices.

The purpose of PowerCuts.IN: (detailed post: http://blog.powercuts.in/?p=9 )

1) Escalating Unheard Voices: Highlight the power cut issue in India by escalating community reported news.
2) Awareness & Accountability: Spreading information about what the government is doing, latest happenings in the Energy Sector and making the tax payer aware.
3) Identifying Problems
4) Accessibility: Making it easy for people to report data using various mediums and publishing data in open, accessible formats.

BBC Video: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/13884788

Problem

Power cut problem in India has been taken for granted, mostly because the urban population can afford alternative means of power(inverters/generators) and the middle class or rural population has become used to it and has started to "live with it". There is a need to trigger a conversation around the issue of power cuts in India which aims at engaging relevant stakeholders: local/regional policy makers, civil society organizations, academicians, researchers & the energy companies with citizens to enable effective governance. The project also aspires to highlight the power issues in the Rural areas by acting as a platform to publish first hand stories from Rural India in multiple forms such as voice, pictures and videos. The focus of media reports around power issue has mainly revolved around the urban and semi-urban cities of India whereas Rural India rarely gets any attention. Crowd-sourcing power cut information across India would enable us to identify energy gaps, frequency & duration of power cuts and help bust some myths around the issue across India, since the data would primarily be citizen generated and considerably accurate.

Solution

A platform connecting the Electricity Utility companies of India with the citizens where the common binding force will be "information" with the power of ICTs. Citizens using various mediums like Web, Mobile web, Smartphone Apps, SMS and Phone Call can report frequency and duration of the power cuts from their location and voice their problems around it to be made available to everyone on the web ensuring larger visibility. The utility companies and the government can make use of this data to have a reality check on the power cut problem reported by citizens. Other issues around power cut like Power Theft, can be tackled by the power of citizen journalism where people can report incidents of theft they witness and thus the senior management in utility companies can take note of such incidents and follow up. This problem is hard to monitor by companies, hence connecting them with citizen reports is a useful step. Utility companies can use this platform to send out "Scheduled power cut" information in advance to the citizens using SMS/Email/Notifications feature on the site, hence providing timely information to the citizens. Citizens can keep a track of the number, frequency and duration of power cuts happening in their locality and ask informed questions to the concerned authorities around the issue showing them factual data. With the power of Internet, Mobile, Voice, Video and power of People put together, all the stakeholders can be empowered to address the issues.

Example

Citizen A: Reports regularly about power cuts duration daily from his location. At the end of the month, visits the website and pulls out a monthly report with all the cuts/duration and writes a letter to the electricity department asking questions. Electricity Company B: Informs everyone about the planned power cuts to happen in the next week due to technical maintenance work being done throughout the city. Citizen B: Notices a factory in his neighbourhood pulling electricity directly from the electric poles(illegally). S/he takes a picture using their Smartphone and sends a report on the site with the location information under the category "Theft". An alert is sent to the concerned utility company of that area through email subscription. The company's senior management then investigates the exact cause and people behind the theft and takes necessary action. Villager A: Calls in to the telephone line of the site to record his concern about power issues in his village due to which his kids cannot study after sunset or how farming activities are hampered. Voice report is published with location information on the map on the site. People from media take note of the audio report and try to highlight the issue with the government asking direct questions. Since the data is accessible in various open formats and through an open API, several other websites and programmers can make use of this data to build around statistical analysis with correlations and draw comparisons and inferences with other data sets.

Marketplace

There are several other civic engagement initiatives that club the Power Cut issue along with other issues. For e.g. http://www.jaagore.com/category/issues/civic-issues TazzaGo App http://www.taazza.com/ - Bangalore - Screen: http://www.appnama.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/SC20110613-165410.jpeg And hopefully many more. However there is not a single focused platform just around the Power Issue for India. The general challenges are: 1) To actively engage participation from all such platforms and stakeholders to work on the common goal and the problem at hand. 2) Reach out to utility companies and convince them to collaborate and share information. 3) Reaching out to the Rural mass and provide them with easy to use mediums of reporting or voicing their concerns.