VidyutSathi

Overview

Bringing power outage reporting
to every citizen

Power outages in India often go unreported because consumers lack an easy way to notify their electricity corporation. VidyutSathi solves this with a dual-channel approach: an Android application for smartphone users and a USSD code program for feature phone users in rural areas.

When a consumer reports an outage, the data — including location, timestamp, and area details — is stored in a centralized database. Electricity corporations and the Ministry of Power can then access this data through an analytical dashboard, identifying patterns, prioritizing repairs, and tracking resolution times.

Technical

Two interfaces, one data pipeline

The Android app uses GPS to automatically capture the user's location when reporting an outage, reducing friction to a single tap. For feature phone users, a USSD menu-driven interface (like *123#) guides them through reporting with just their keypad — no internet connection required.

Both channels feed into the same centralized data store. The analytics dashboard provides electricity corporations with real-time heatmaps of outage clusters, historical trend analysis, and response time metrics — turning crowd-sourced reports into actionable intelligence for grid maintenance.

Context

Built at India's largest hackathon

Smart India Hackathon 2019 is a nationwide competition where student teams solve real problems posed by government ministries and industry. VidyutSathi was built in response to a challenge from the power sector — designing the system, building both interfaces, and presenting a working demo within the hackathon timeline.