In certain areas of Bengaluru, walking can frequently require avoiding damaged pavement, missing tiles, parked cars, or areas without any kind of walkway. For many locals, particularly kids and senior citizens, this means being forced to travel on congested highways just to get from one location to another.
A 14-year-old city student has now created a smartphone app to assist residents in more systematically reporting such issues to local authorities.
Surya Uthkarsha, a 14-year-old student in Bengaluru, developed the "RASTHE" app, a crowdsourced civic platform.
Often referred to as the "Tinder for Footpaths," it enables users to rate, geotag, and take pictures of the state of pedestrian infrastructure.
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Users can vote on the worst parts of the city, swipe through issues, and increase public pressure on public officials.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) oversees official instruments to address inadequate infrastructure, while RASTHE is intended to gamify civic auditing.
Surya described the platform's concept and user interface in a video posted on X.
"I have developed a mobile application that allows users in Bengaluru to report footpaths. If you report a pathway that you don't like, is broken, or is unusable, you may upload an image, and it will appear on the crowdsourced grid and be mapped to your ward, making it easy for BBMP to correct.
I fixed Bengaluru and TRAFFIC in 30 minutes.
— Surya Uthkarsha (@SuryaUthkarsha6) May 19, 2026
Meet RASTHE: Tinder for Footpaths
A crowdsourced platform where you can:
• Report broken / missing footpaths directly to BBMP
• Swipe footpaths like Tinder
• Upvote the worst spots that need urgent fixing
• Turn every citizen… pic.twitter.com/5o0EE4dJVv
In order to determine which sidewalk in Bengaluru is the best, he added, "You can also nominate a footpath that is bad or good, and people can vote on it."
Surya claims that the app was developed in around 30 minutes utilising the "10x Apps" platform and is now prepared for submission to app stores.
After Surya shared information about the initiative on social media with the comment, "I fixed Bengaluru and traffic in 30 minutes," the project attracted viral attention. Introducing RASTHE: Footpath Tinder.
"A crowdsourced platform where you can report broken or missing footpaths directly to BBMP," he added when describing the software. Upvote the worst places that require immediate attention by swiping the walkways like Tinder. Make every resident a city sensor.
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Since then, the campaign has garnered a lot of attention online, with many users applauding the concept and describing it as a useful application of technology to address common municipal problems in the city.
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