COST COMPASS INDIA

Cost Compass India started with a pretty simple frustration. Every time inflation came up in the news, it was one number for the whole country, and that never matched what I was seeing around me in Jaipur. Food, rent and transport were all getting expensive at completely different speeds, and I kept wondering what that looked like in Kerala or Bihar compared to Rajasthan.

 

So along with two of my classmates, Tisha Sharma and Manasvini Agarwal, I decided to build something that would show it properly. Cost Compass India is an interactive website that tracks inflation across India's 28 states and 8 union territories, and 8 spending sectors. You can see where prices are rising fastest and which part of people's budgets is taking the hit. Instead of one national figure, you get a breakdown that actually says something about daily life in different parts of the country.

 

Building it taught me more than I expected. The economics was the part I was comfortable with. Turning raw data into something a normal person could understand in a few seconds was much harder, and we went through a lot of versions trying to present the numbers without overwhelming anyone. We also put real effort into making the site work on phones, because most people who would use something like this are going to open it on their mobile.

 

Working as a team of three meant splitting up the work, arguing over design choices and figuring out how to bring everyone's ideas into one product. Yash sir mentored us through it and kept pushing us to make it better.

 

Once the site was ready, I bought our own domain and set it up so it was properly live, with HTTPS and everything working. It was a small step, but seeing costcompassind.co.in open on my phone for the first time made the project feel real.

 

For me, Cost Compass is about making economics feel less abstract. Inflation affects every household, and I wanted to build something that helps people see exactly how.

 

Website: https://costcompassind.co.in