Polis by Public Policy India
Become an agent of civic change
Reading about policy is the start. Polis is where you act on it: file the complaint, use your rights, show up, and put your city on top. Log every action you take, climb the ladder, and see the community move. Free to use.
One action looks small. A community's doesn't.
One RTI rarely moves the system. Ten thousand do. Polis turns single civic actions into collective weight: every complaint filed, right used and consultation answered, logged and counted across a 150,000-person community. The results will come, and the potential is the point.
Act, log, climb
File one RTI this month
Pick one thing you have always wanted to know: a road budget, a pending application, a public contract. File a single RTI and log it. If every active member did this once, that is tens of thousands of questions the system has to answer.
The chapter leaderboard
Every action a member logs counts for their city. Polis opens to the community alongside the new site, and this is where the chapter standings will live, updated by chapter leaders. Be among the first to put your city on the board.
Want your city higher? The fastest way up is to act and bring your chapter with you.
Civic Champions of the month
Members who go further than most, chosen each month by the team. Once Polis is live, this is where their work will be recognised.
Recent wins
Five tiers. No fees to unlock. Earned by actions.
Every action earns points. Points move you up the ladder. The reward is recognition, a badge, a place on the board, a spotlight, not anything you have to pay for or chase.
Your move
Pick one action. Do it this week. Log it. That is how a citizen becomes an agent of change, and how a city climbs.
Dashboard / Act & track
Act & track
Do the thing. Log it.
Use the toolkit below to take a real civic action, then log it. Your points and your tier move on the spot, and every verified action counts toward your city.
Every action, counted
Create a free civic account, then log each action with a reference number or a short note as proof. A chapter leader reviews it, and once it is verified it counts toward your score, your tier and your city. Your score is real and checked, not self-declared, and it is yours to carry.
Create your civic account
Sign in with your email. We send a one-time code, so there is no password to remember. The account is what makes your score verifiable.
Your city is used only to total your chapter's standing. It is never shown against your name.
Your submissions
How to actually do it
Pick an issue. You get the responsible authority, the law that backs you, where to file, and your RTI lever. Done it? Log it from inside the panel.
Polis points you to official government channels and helps you draft your complaint. It does not file on your behalf or track your complaint with the authority.
The levers that move files
Right to Information (RTI)
The Right to Information Act, 2005 lets any citizen ask a public authority for its records. File online for central bodies at rtionline.gov.in (the fee is usually Rs 10, and people below the poverty line are exempt). The officer must reply within 30 days. If they do not, you file a first appeal within 30 days; a second appeal goes to the Information Commission. For state departments, use your state's RTI portal.
CPGRAMS, the central grievance portal
CPGRAMS (pgportal.gov.in) is connected to every central ministry and state government. It is free, open 24x7, and gives you a tracking number and an appeal option. Use it when the responsible authority has not acted within its own timeline. The target for redressal is 21 days. It is also on the UMANG app.
The escalation ladder
The same five steps work for almost any public service. Each rung leaves a paper trail the next one can use.
Complaint builder
Fill in three boxes and Polis writes a clean, formal complaint you can copy into the portal or paste into an email. Nothing you type leaves your device.
These are official Government of India and state channels. Helpline numbers, portal addresses and timelines change occasionally, so confirm the current detail on the official portal before you file. Electricity grievances follow the Electricity Act, 2003 (Consumer Grievance Redressal Forum, then the Electricity Ombudsman); consumer cases follow the Consumer Protection Act, 2019; information requests follow the Right to Information Act, 2005.
Dashboard / Engage
Engage
Go beyond the complaint. Shape the system.
Fixing what is broken is one half of citizenship. The other half is shaping what comes next: the laws being written, the people who represent you, and the vote that puts them there. Here is how to use all three.
Have your say before a bill becomes law
Filing a complaint fixes today's problem. Commenting on a draft law shapes tomorrow's. Under the Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy, 2014, central ministries are meant to place draft bills, rules and regulations in the public domain for at least 30 days, alongside a plain-language note on what the law does and why, so any citizen can read it and send comments before it goes to Cabinet.
Your comment can actually change the law
This is not a suggestion box. On one platform that routes citizen feedback to government, 52% of the comments collected on the draft Transgender (Protection of Rights) Rules were reflected in the final law, and across consultations they report roughly 30 to 70 percent of community feedback finding its way in.
MyGov consultations
The Government of India's platform, in 12 languages, where ministries post draft policies and bills for public comment. You register to submit your views.
Open MyGov → Plain languageCIVIS
A non-profit that lists open consultations, explains each draft in plain language, collects your feedback and passes it to the right department.
Find a live consultation → TrackPRS Legislative Research
Independent, non-partisan summaries and tracking of every bill in Parliament, including which ones are before a committee for scrutiny.
Track the bills →When a bill is referred to a Parliamentary Standing Committee, that committee can invite written memoranda from the public, so watch for its press notice. State assemblies vary, but several now publish draft legislation for comment too, often through the same platforms.
The 30-day public-comment window is policy and is not always followed, which is exactly why citizen participation matters. The incorporation figures are from a civic-tech platform's own published experience and vary from one consultation to the next.
Reach your representatives
You have representatives at three levels: in Parliament (your Lok Sabha MP, and your state's Rajya Sabha MPs), in your state assembly (your MLA), and locally (your municipal councillor, or your Gram Panchayat). Their contact details are public. Most of them rarely hear from the people they represent, which is exactly why a clear, specific message lands.
Find your representative first
Not sure who your MP or MLA is? Search the electoral roll on the Voters' Services Portal. It shows your Assembly and Parliamentary Constituency, and you then look that name up in the directories below.
Your MP
The official Lok Sabha directory on the Parliament website: every sitting member, their constituency and contact.
Open the directory → Rajya SabhaYour state's MPs
The official Rajya Sabha directory. These members represent your state in the upper house, on six-year terms.
Open the directory → Find themYour constituency
Search the electoral roll to confirm which Parliamentary and Assembly Constituency you fall in, then match it to your MP and MLA.
Look it up → Hold them to itTrack their work
PRS Legislative Research shows an MP's attendance, questions asked and debates joined. See whether yours turns up.
Track on PRS → Their recordKnow their record
MyNeta, by the Association for Democratic Reforms, compiles the declared assets and any criminal cases of candidates and members.
Check MyNeta →Your MLA & councillor
For your MLA, your state Legislative Assembly website carries the member list. For local issues, your municipal corporation or panchayat lists its ward members.
How to write so they read it
Keep it to one issue. Open with your name and that you are a constituent, and name your area. State the problem in two lines, then exactly what you want them to do: raise a question in the House, write to the ministry, or visit. Be firm and courteous. A single page is plenty.
Contact details on the official portals are maintained by the Houses themselves. Lok Sabha membership changes at a general election, the next due in 2029; the Rajya Sabha changes in parts, with about a third of its seats every two years, so these directories rarely need checking in between.
Vote, and show up
The most basic civic power is the vote, and it lapses the moment your name slips off the roll. Beyond elections, the nearest democracy is your Gram Sabha or ward committee, where local budgets and works are actually decided, and where one informed resident can shift a decision.
Register or check your name
The Election Commission's Voters' Services Portal: register as a new voter, check or correct your entry, and download your e-EPIC.
Open the portal → AppVoter Helpline app
Register, find your polling booth, see candidate profiles, and lodge electoral complaints. The national helpline is 1950.
Get the app →Gram Sabha & ward meetings
Attend the open meeting for your village or ward. Ask what was sanctioned, what was spent, and what is pending. These bodies sign off on local works and welfare lists.
Portal addresses and app links occasionally change, so confirm the current detail on the official ECI website before you rely on them.
Small acts, compounded
One comment on a bill, one letter to your MP, one name kept on the roll. None of it is dramatic. All of it is how a country is actually run.