Walking through parts of Bengaluru can often mean stepping around broken pavements, missing tiles, parked vehicles, or stretches with no footpath at all. For many residents, especially children and elderly people, that means being pushed onto crowded roads simply to get from one place to another.
Now, a 14-year-old student from the city has developed a mobile application aimed at helping citizens report such problems directly to civic authorities in a more organised way.
The app, called “RASTHE”, allows users to upload photos of damaged or unusable footpaths, rate them, and vote on the worst stretches across the city. The teenager behind the project, Surya Uthkarsha, has described it as a “Tinder for Footpaths” because of its swipe-based interface.
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How the app works
In a video shared on X, Surya explained the idea behind the platform and how users can interact with it.
“I have built a mobile app for Bengaluru users to report footpaths. Say you don’t like a footpath, or it’s broken or unusable — upload an image while reporting it, and it shows up on the crowdsourced grid and is mapped to your ward, so BBMP can easily fix it.”
The app also includes a public voting feature, allowing users to nominate both good and bad footpaths.
“You can also nominate a footpath that is bad or good, and people can vote on it so you can finally understand which is the best footpath in Bengaluru,” he said.
According to Surya, the app was created using the platform “10x Apps” in around 30 minutes and is now ready to be submitted to app stores.
Turn every citizen into a sensor
The project gained attention online after Surya posted about it on social media with the caption: “I fixed Bengaluru and traffic in 30 minutes. Meet RASTHE: Tinder for Footpaths.”
He further described the app as: “A crowdsourced platform where you can report broken or missing footpaths directly to BBMP. Swipe footpaths like Tinder, upvote the worst spots that need urgent fixing. Turn every citizen into a sensor for the city.”
The initiative has since drawn widespread reactions online, with several users praising the idea and calling it a practical use of technology to address everyday civic issues in the city.
