Twitter Updates lets you know #powercuts across India!

Power cuts in India are so common, that if you have un-interrupted power for a week, you are one of the chosen lucky ones! By now, Indians are so used to it that power-cut is a must-consider item before you plan any functions or a major event! And, this is the situation in urban cities – In rural areas, you are lucky if you have uninterrupted power even for a single day!

Indian Government had promised couple of years back that, by 2012, there will be power to all, – it still looks like a distant dream!

Probably the power of new-age media may help Government authorities to understand how serious the power problem really is in India ! A new initiative has been launched by Indian Twitterers (Shefaly Yogendra & Ajay Kumar) that plans to collate upto-the-minute information on power cuts through out India – and How are they doing it ?

By use of Twitter #Hastags and Google Maps!

Twitter users across India are encouraged to tweet about power cuts in their area with Hashtags #powercutindia . Here is how a tweet can be sent –

#powercutindia (street, city – location name/pincode) #from (time) #planned or #unplanned (if its a scheduled load shedding or unexpected outage). Also report with #powercutindia #back when it comes back. You can refer to detailed and other format guidelines here.

How to report power cut through various mediums

• Twitter – by using the hashtag #powercutindia.
• Mobile Browser – The website is mobile web accessible up to an extent. So you can view/send reports or browse the site using any internet enabled phone with a browser.
• Web – using the Submit Report form on the website http://fmi.me/power
• Smartphone App – iPhone/Android users can download the Ushahidi app from their App stores and add the site URL in its settings as http://powercuts.in/ and start reporting.

And what do you get when you report these power-cuts – You get a super-awesome mashup of this data together on Google Map of India!

So, here is an appeal to all twitterverse – Get together and show the power of collective and help this initiative grow!