CROWDSOURCED CIVIC ISSUE REPORTING AND RESOLUTION SYSTEM
Thillai Gowri R
Urban governance in the twenty-first century faces mounting pressure from rapid population growth, aging infrastructure, and widening expectations between government services and commercial responsiveness. The Crowdsourced Civic Issue Reporting and Resolution System is a multi-tier digital platform designed to bridge the communication gap between citizens and municipal authorities by enabling real-time, geotagged reporting of civic infrastructure issues such as potholes, waste accumulation, broken streetlights, water leakages, and drainage blockages. The system employs a Three-Tier Architecture comprising a cross-platform mobile and web frontend, a microservices-based application logic layer, and a PostgreSQL/PostGIS data management layer. Citizens submit complaints via photograph, GPS location, and icon-based category selection requiring under thirty seconds of user effort. An automated Assignment Algorithm routes each complaint to the correct ward office based on geospatial point-in-polygon matching. Field workers receive task assignments with navigation guidance and are required to submit georeferenced resolution photographs, creating an end-to-end accountability chain. The administrative dashboard provides real-time heat maps, multi-dimensional complaint filtering, SLA-based escalation workflows, and periodic performance analytics. The system incorporates Privacy by Design principles, OAuth 2.0 authentication, AES-256 data encryption at rest, and TLS 1.3 communication security to protect citizen data in compliance with India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act. Evaluation through unit, integration, load, usability, and penetration testing demonstrates that the system achieves sub-three-second response times under peak concurrent load and maintains a 99.9% uptime target. The project demonstrates that open-source technology stacks can deliver enterprise-grade civic platforms at operational costs accessible to resource-constrained municipal bodies, contributing to the advancement of data-driven, citizen-centred urban governance.