Author: Zen Citizen
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Zen Update – July ’26
TL;DR: After months of chasing data and analysing the process, we got BDA decision-makers on board for a complete overhaul of a decades-old citizen service. Now we’re waiting for the changes to go live on the Karnataka’s Seva Sindhu citizen services portal. Zen Citizen had previously uncovered the end-to-end issues in a BDA citizen service…
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Zen Update – June ’26
Hello 🙂 Every phase of “I can’t do this anymore.” inevitably gives way to optimism; usually after meeting someone working in the same space whose sincerity, ambition, and grasp of what Zen Citizen is trying to achieve, leave me feeling that the road ahead will be a little less difficult. This month proved no different.…
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Zen Update – May ’26
Something has shifted This month, Zen Citizen got the opportunity to walk into a room of people we had been building up to reach for months. And I dare say they bought into the vision. I also dare say that from this point on, access to people/data/systems will no longer be a significant challenge. I…
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Zen Updates – April ’26
Hello! 🙂 This has been another good month! 🙂 We worked with Seva Sindhu and BDA to simplify the Possession Certificate application process, and unexpectedly ended up re-designing the service itself; while reviewing BDA’s upcoming RTI portal, we successfully pushed for more citizen-centric design decisions; finally, while documenting government procedures, we discovered that processes are…
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BDA Property Tax Portal Audit
Zen Citizen conducted an audit of the BDA’s property tax portal and identified the following issues, prioritized by urgency and need for immediate resolution. Search function not working The search feature for properties using the property ID is not working. The combination from BDA records used are : PID 6000044357, Challan 1688637, Amount 604.40. We…
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Zen Updates – Mar ’26
Hi again 🙂 Zen Citizen Rwanda This month we are excited to share that our volunteer Gaius has launched ‘Zen Citizen Rwanda’. Gaius has been with us for a year now, mainly helping with our website. In his words, “I came to deeply appreciate the kind of impact regular citizens can create, and made a…
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Zen Updates – Feb ’26
Sometimes things stall. Sometimes they move, but don’t quite land. This month was different: things both moved and landed 🙂 There were challenges, but we’re getting a better grip on handling them, helped in no small part by having a strong champion in the BDA. On to the specifics now 🙂 BDA: eAuction portal update…
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Zen Updates – Jan ’26
This month has been one of the most fulfilling for our team! We truly experienced what becomes possible with strong institutional support. The BDA eAuction Portal goes live Our aspirations have turned to reality – the eAuction portal we developed for BDA is now integrated into their website. To our knowledge, this may be the first…
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Zen Updates – Dec ’25
Hello! 🙂 The highlight for this month is our collaboration with the BDA on their eAuction communications. Read on! Designing Transparency: Working with BDA on eAuctions Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) recently shared announced on Twitter about their upcoming eAuctions. Zen Citizen noted that the poster was hard to understand, with too much information packed in…
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The Lost ‘Last Mile’ in Government Service Delivery: A citizen’s eKhata journey
This article presents a detailed account of the ambiguities, pain points, and uncertainty experienced by a couple, Latha and Anand, despite having all the necessary documents. It raises the question: if the process is not contactless even when all documents are in order, then for whom is it contactless? We deeply respect the bureaucrats who…