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India Today
30-06-2025
- India Today
IIT Hyderabad, ISRO, India Post create Digipin, a digital address system for India
Aiming to clean up India's chaotic address system, IIT Hyderabad, India Post, and ISRO's National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) have teamed up to launch DIGIPIN -- a new digital address system designed to simplify how locations are identified across the country, from city apartments to remote villages and even offshore face it -- Indian addresses are messy. Unstructured descriptions, local landmarks, and vague house numbers often confuse both people and delivery systems. DIGIPIN fixes this by converting GPS coordinates into short, human-readable codes -- basically a smarter, more precise version of your regular PIN traditional codes that only point to a general area, DIGIPIN gives a precise digital address that can be accessed using a smartphone with GPS and a high-resolution map app. It works offline, doesn't collect personal data, and is built to handle everything from home deliveries to emergency services and government THE TEAM BEHIND DIGIPIN DIGIPIN was developed by a sharp team from IIT Hyderabad's Department of Electrical Engineering. The project was led by Prof Soumya Jana, Dr Lakshmi Prasad Natarajan, and Dr Shashank Vatedka, with Tarandeep Singh, a former MTech (AI) aim? To create a system that works anywhere in India -- easy to use, machine-friendly, and readable by humans. They used a geohashing algorithm that compresses location data into short codes, which can be shared, stored, or even printed as QR result is an open-source, privacy-safe, and offline-friendly tool that can generate digital addresses with just a smartphone — no internet or complex setup DIGIPIN WORKSDIGIPIN uses geohashing to convert exact coordinates into short, intuitive codes. These can be printed, stored in digital wallets, or shared easily. The system is built to:Cover all locations in India, including high-density zones and maritime areasBe generated on a basic smartphone using a map-enabled appWork offline with minimal effortAvoid storing any personal data'DIGIPIN will provide immense convenience it could be printed on consignments for machine-based routing,' said Dr Shashank short, the IIT Hyderabad team has taken a national-scale logistics problem and turned it into a simple, powerful code -- shorter than a phone number, and way more useful.- Ends
Indian Express
30-06-2025
- Science
- Indian Express
IIT Hyderabad, India Post and NRSC develop Digipin for digital geospatial address: Meet the team
The Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH), in partnership with the Department of Posts and the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of ISRO, has developed 'DIGIPIN', a machine-interpretable, open-source geospatial addressing system. JoSAA Counselling 2025: Check detailed schedule here The move is aimed at creating a precise, uniform, and digital infrastructure for physical addresses across India, including urban, rural, and maritime locations. DIGIPIN is expected to complement the existing Postal Index Number (PIN) code system, as per a statement by IIT-H. Why the need for DIGIPIN? Traditional address formats in India are often inconsistent, lacking standardisation and machine-readability. This poses operational challenges for logistics, postal delivery, and service access. DIGIPIN has been developed to overcome these limitations by introducing a compact, geo-coded alternative that can serve as a foundational digital public infrastructure (DPI) for addressing. JoSAA Counselling 2025: Class commencement, orientation dates for IITs out; complete schedule here DIGIPIN is designed as a geohash-based code that can be an alphanumeric string encoding a geographic location using the latitude and longitude of any point of interest, in India. Its format is human-readable and allows for offline retrieval of location coordinates using GPS-enabled devices. This enhances usability for both digital and non-digital environments, while ensuring privacy by not embedding any personal data. Meet the team behind DIGIPIN According to a statement from the institute, DIGIPIN was developed as part of IITH's ongoing commitment to applied digital infrastructure solutions in collaboration with government and public service entities. According to IITH, the system could serve not only postal and logistics operations but also support government service delivery, urban planning, and disaster response. DIGIPIN is the outcome of a research initiative led by the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Hyderabad. The core team includes Dr Shashank Vatedka, Assistant Professor, Dr Lakshmi Prasad Natarajan, Associate Professor, and Dr Soumya Jana, Professor. The team also included Tarandeep Singh, a former MTech (AI) student at IITH. In their statement, the core group members such as Dr Vatedka, highlighted DIGIPIN's role in enabling concise representation of addresses that can be machine-readable and usable across platforms. Dr Natarajan noted that the system was intentionally designed for ease of adoption, allowing users to generate and use DIGIPIN with minimal technical input. Dr Jana underlined the potential for DIGIPIN in areas lacking reliable address systems, such as during emergency response or in temporary service locations like health camps. How does DIGIPIN work? The DIGIPIN code is designed to be as short as possible while retaining high accuracy. Users can derive the geographic location embedded in a DIGIPIN with low computational effort, even without internet access. It is applicable to densely populated urban zones as well as remote or maritime regions, with each point being assignable with a unique code. The system is structured to be easy to integrate and requires minimal manual intervention. Users can generate their DIGIPIN using commonly available smartphones with location services and an app equipped with a high-resolution map. It can be printed as a QR or barcode on parcels for automated sorting and routing, or stored in digital wallets for location identification. Its format has been designed to enable directionality and efficient spatial encoding.
