Just came across DIGIPIN, digital addressing system developed by India Post
Wanted to know if anyone here has used it.
What is DIGIPIN?
DIGIPIN (Digital Pincode) is a new initiative by India Post aimed at providing a precise digital address to every residence or business. Unlike traditional pincodes that cover large areas, a DIGIPIN is location-specific, helping in accurate deliveries, especially in rural or unstructured locations.
Key Uses:
Pinpoint-accurate address for deliveries
Helpful for e-commerce and logistics
Could be integrated into KYC, verification systems, etc.
It being open source is definitely a very big positive.
What3Words tried to do something similar, but there were a lot of issues, it saw quite a bit of adoption for emergency services and logistics but having to spell 3 words over radio was a huge issue. Especially because it limits itself to a combination of 3 words, many locations are wildly different depending on if one the words are simply plural or not, also an issue for non native speakers since a lot of words can be complex. And since it’s proprietary the organizations trying to use it need to pay a subscription too, plus the company running W3W is losing a lot of money so it could close off any day.
DIGIPIN at least just seems to be targeting logistics for now, and since it’s open source it also won’t run into a lot of the same issues. However it does seem a bit like finding the problem to a solution once again. GPS coordinates exist, they’re available from almost all of our devices without any hassle, some couriers and many e-commerce sites now let you just drop a pin on the map (alongside the written address). It could be useful for people who just don’t have a proper address but it seems like an extreme edge case.
Although if it does see adoption, then it would still be a net positive since not every service uses the GPS location properly or at all. It all depends on if it actually sees adoption.
The value that India Post is trying to bring in is manual validation of the address.
GPS coordinates can be dropped for any location but you don’t know whether that pin drop is accurate and the place is what it says it is.
Its a very good use of the existing network of postmen and if you can write your address in 10 characters then why not.
But you are right, currently it is a solution in search of a problem, but then so is building public infra where there is no demand. Sometimes we don’t know we had a problem until we see the solution.
Google also has Plus Codes. DIGIPIN is a strategic investment in a sovereign digital asset, a long-term play for self-reliance. Why cede control of a fundamental national data layer to a US company and then have their president tell us what to do.
That’s definitely true, I do hope it sees adoption.
Although I’m still not too keen on the benefits, from what I saw on their github page, it seems like it only really encodes and decodes lat/long coordinates from a GPS in the first place, I didn’t see any mention of manual validation (sorry if I missed it though). Which is not very useful from an implementation point of view for service providers since they can directly implement a gps/map feature instead.
Although from a user perspective it could prove to be very useful since you can remember your own DIGIPIN and it’s way easier to share compared to GPS coordinates. You could also just ask your friends or relatives for their DIGIPINs which would be infinitely more convenient than trying to drop a pin on the map for their location. It’s definitely a good unified approach to the issue of convenience in address sharing.
Wonderful concept here, but don’t know of they are psuhing the APIs to courier companies and surveyers etc. Unless they force future land / house / shop registrations referring to this I doubt people will adapt do fast. API has to be forced down everyone, governemnt agencies, online marketplaces etc
