Bhoganti: Citizen Journalism

Although the government has a vision of rendering services and allowing the accessibility of services to citizens through the use of technology, it is far from reality - even for the government services, let alone the other service providers.

There is a huge communication gap between service providing authorities and the receivers - general citizen. We are working to solve these problems engaging multiple stakeholders. People facing any social problems, needing solutions or to notify others, can take photos or short videos of the situation and upload with a description. The proper authority will be notified according to the category. 

“Bhoganti” will have a positive impact on mass people and different authorities to solve their issues. It will make administration fast and effective, provide better services, and establish transparency and accountability. Time will be saved, efficiency will be ensured and living will be easier. 

Almost every person faces problems on a daily basis in Bangladesh. Bhoganti is a citizen journalism portal where people can post problems of government  and non-govt. services, any socio-environmental and economical problems. In detail, transportation and communication problems, violence, corruption, pollution, food, harassment and many other immoral issues - be it electricity or gas related issues of your community or a fire or accident somewhere in your path. It is easy and safe for you to let people and authorities know. 

A research of DU shows that 66% of women are victims of domestic violence in Bangladesh and 72.7% have never disclosed their experience to others. This is a statistics of a particular problem. 

“Bhoganti” has mobile (iOs & android) and web app. So it is easily accessible for mass people on the go. While uploading an issue, there will be - dropdown menu of the problem category, options for adding picture, short video and description; location, list of organizations, notification alerts, sections resulting solved and unsolved problems, comparing of brands, and the level of sufferings.

So, ‘Bhoganti’ will help people to express their sufferings, opinions and to notify proper authorities to solve those problems.

This solution will have a positive impact on two types of people in Bangladesh. 

• Mass people: Our platform will serve the mass people of Bangladesh. Bangladesh, already declared as a middle-income country, is emerging with enormous potential for further economic growth. Despite enormous potential and high hopes, the country remains haunted by various social issues with her huge polation to serve. Mass people of Bangladesh are facing issues from various service providers and most of their complaints remain unnoticed. They will be benefited by addressing problems to proper authority and getting the actual solution. 

• Authorities: The authority may include various brand organizations such as telecom companies or service organizations such as WASA, Titas gas, DESCO, PGCB, DESA and civil services like police, RAB, fire brigade, etc. They will be notified of those issues that are related to them, and can solve those and mark as solved. Based on their performance they will get reviews from the people. 

With the help of “Bhoganti”, people can share their bad experiences against service providers and brands. Users can keep their identity anonymous or disclose. Additionally, the users can compare among brands by monitoring how good they are acting to resolve the problems. 

Problems are a common phenomenon in a developing country with a huge population like Bangladesh. People are continuously facing problems and making complaints. 

There are various journalism portals to address those problems but none are able to catch the eyes of the proper authority to solve those. The issues are just published, not solved. Therefore, most of the problems reported in the news portals are neither reach to authority nor solved appropriately. 

“Bhoganti” - citizen journalism portal - ensures that general users (any citizen can register) can publish their own problems anytime, anywhere. It will also facilitate different authorities like government organizations, corporate or private companies to register on the platform as “Provider”. Each provider will be registered under a different category like Fire service/ electricity provider/ gas supplier etc. When a general user will post an issue, s/he has to select a category. Every issue of any particular category will be notified to the providers of those category services. The provider can mark the status of the issue as noted/in progress/solved. Summarized report of a particular timeline for different category or a particular company can also be generated. 

Mass people and various organizations are the users of this app. And both parties will be benefited. Problems will be mentioned properly with evidence like  pictures or small videos of the problem with description. 

This will be a dynamic platform as people will get the privilege to mention the problems directly to the authority. This app will work as a fine line between the general people and the authorities of Bangladesh.  

Currently, “Bhoganti” enables users to share their bad experiences against service providers and brands. Users can-

• Address the names of the brand, company or store

• Set the level of sufferings

• Give a short description of the problem

• Compare different brands and organizations. 

The features we are working on are:

• Categories of the issues

• Adding pictures or short videos of the issues

• Elaborate description  

• Exact map location 

• Exact timeline of the incident

• Categories of the providers

• Connect issues to relevant providers with notification alerts

• Issue status marker

• Summarized report generator  

Bhoganti’s web and mobile apps (Android & iOS) are still in pilot phase with limited features. We are working to add more. 

We developed the whole site on PHP and MySQL. It is built by using Zend Framework 2. Doctrine2 is used as Object Relational Mapper (ORM).