Can an app help clean up the Indian capital

The government of the Indian capital, Delhi, has launched an app that it hopes will solve the city's mounting rubbish problem once and for all.

The app named "Swacch Delhi" (Clean Delhi) is available for Android devices and allows users to upload pictures of refuse in their areas.

Delhi is thought to generate around 1,500 tonnes of waste every day.

This in itself would be a challenge to clean up, but what makes Delhi's situation perhaps unique is its complicated administrative structure where different institutions have jurisdiction over different parts of the city.

Some of these belong to the Delhi state government (headed by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party), while others are controlled by the federal government (headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party).

Adding to the complication is the fact that the city municipal corporation is run by a local unit of the BJP.

This has resulted in a lot of passing the buck, as various institutions tell irate residents that someone else has jurisdiction over their area.

Gopal Mohan, an adviser to Mr Kejriwal and the man in charge of the app, told the BBC that Swacch Delhi was born out of a meeting between the chief minister and various municipal organisations in an effort to "bypass the jurisdictional complications in the system".

The logic behind the app is fairly straightforward.

Users take a picture of rubbish and upload it on to the app, which automatically geotags it and saves it on to a database. People have until 30 November to upload images, after which municipality workers will clean the areas highlighted through the images.

"The app is not even two days' old, but we are already inundated. We have already received more than 3,000 pictures and the app has about 24,000 downloads," Mr Mohan told the BBC, adding that many people who had downloaded the app had told them that they were still looking for images to upload.

He said that once the deadline for receiving images ended, the government would take a call on whether to clean the areas with its existing sanitation staff, or whether to temporarily hire workers and trucks.

"The effort will be personally overseen by the chief minister who will work with five teams to ensure that all areas highlighted through the app stay clean," he added.