Local Voice

Local Voice: A platform for locals to get vocal

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Inspiration

When covid-19 struck the nation, it was the smaller localities and villages that got affected the most. People were left stuck without a proper platform to put forward their opinions and issues towards the government. During this, people had to rely on whatsapp messages, texts, & phone calls to ensure that their issues were heard by the local government bodies (i.e the panchayat). More often than not, alot of the queries received by the panchayat were repetitive & the response given by the government did not manage to reach the masses. This brought about absolute chaos and unrest among people. For example: The first lockdown was unprecedented & left people uncertain about where to get their next meal from ( daily essential needs like milk, flour etc). During this time, the sarpanch's house was flooded with calls from all over about the distribution of food items & other essential products. Despite all this, alot of people were still left in the dark & were left feeling unconfident in the government.

To resolve this issue we decided to come up with a platform where locals can raise their issues up with the government & the people in turn can see what actions have been taken to resolve this

What it does

Local Voice is a youth run platform that allows locals to bring forward their concerns to the local authorities. The locals can then view what all problems are taken up by the government & what is the response of the government on that matter. When matters are collectively put forward on a common platform, it puts added pressure on the government to resolve them. This ensures that people get timely responses from the government.

How we built it

Front-end: HTML, CSS, JavaScript Back-end: PHP Database: MySQL We used a Xampp server & the database schematic uploaded with appropriate username & password as defined by the admin side of the webpage The website is deployed as a LocalHost website

Challenges we ran into

Due to Lack of time, we had to prioritise what features were most relevant to the project and focus on building those first. When coming up with a product, we usually tend to make sure it is as perfect as possible and think about every edge case and workaround to make sure its implementable. While this was a fun exercise for us to do, it ended up taking alot of time.

The second challenge we faced was deciding on a particular stack to build the project as each of us were familiar with different technologies.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're very enthusiastic about our project idea and believe that it has the potential to actually solve problems faced by goans

What we learned

We learnt how to design a client server architecture

What's next for Local Voice

This same website can be replicated in each constituency of goa. This would help take governance right to the local level. Furthermore, a member of the panchayat can be appointed to periodically look into the new issues and update the statuses of the ongoing queries.

Later, a dedicated section can be created for people to provide solutions to existing problems. Since the locals are the one most affected by the decisions taken ,they should be given a chance to express their take/suggestions for the matter.

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