Forget PIN Codes? How DIGIPIN Could Change The Way India Finds Addresses
· Free Press Journal
India’s take on Shakespeare’s “What’s in a name?” could well be, “What’s in an address?” Every Indian who has looked for a house “near the big tree” or “behind the old shop” and been told to “just ask anyone” knows how finding a door can mean wading through stacks of descriptions, fickle landmarks, inconsistent building numbers, unnamed streets or multiple neighbourhoods sharing a name.
Visit asg-reflektory.pl for more information.
That 20–30% of India’s population lacks a proper, recognised address comes with practical challenges. Poor addressing is notorious for costing the police, fire brigade, ambulances and disaster relief precious time, more so in crowded, unmapped or remote areas, while also making it harder for residents to access public services and welfare benefits.
In 2025-26, incomplete or inaccurate addresses were the reason for around 45% of return-to-origin e-commerce failures. The plight of rural areas, where a single PIN code can span 40-60 kilometres and houses aren’t always numbered in order, is anybody’s guess. Little wonder that last-mile delivery is the most expensive part of the supply chain in India and delivering in rural areas can cost two to three times more than in cities.
Quest for precision
India’s response to these problems is DIGIPIN, or Digital Postal Index Number, a new digital addressing system that adds greater precision to regular addresses or PIN codes by giving locations a short code. It was created by the Department of Posts in collaboration with ISRO and a team from the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH), comprising Shashank Vatedka, Soumya Jana, Lakshmi Prasad Natarajan and Tarandeep Singh.
Launched in 2025, DIGIPIN is a 10-character alphanumeric code based on the latitude and longitude of a location within India and its maritime Exclusive Economic Zone, up to a resolution of approximately 3.8 metres by 3.8 metres. “The regular 6-digit PIN represents a broad geographical region that a particular post office serves, and cannot be used to narrow down to a particular house or location,” explains Dr. Vatedka, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at IITH. “The PIN can only identify a locality — taluka in some cases — and you need the full descriptive address. DIGIPIN is a geospatial reference that can be used to encode all of this information.”
In effect, it provides a standard way to identify the precise location of a place using numbers and codes so that different maps, apps and systems can all point to the exact same spot. DIGIPIN works by zooming into a map of India 10 times in succession, progressively dividing it into 16 boxes and generating one character of the code each time, based on the box containing the chosen location. By the end, the box is down to its smallest grid unit, resulting in a 10-character code.
Spatial infrastructure
“DIGIPIN is significant because it brings standardisation and multiple institutions into a geospatial, location-led addressing system at a national scale,” says Dr. Surya S. Durbha, Professor and Head of IIT Bombay’s Centre of Studies in Resources Engineering. “It creates a common spatial infrastructure that can be used across government, businesses, emergency services and many other sectors at a finer scale to understand what is happening in a particular location, for example, in relation to a disaster, traffic congestion, crop yield, air pollution, and so on.”
Like a Google Maps pin, DIGIPIN also represents the geographical location in terms of latitude-longitude. “However,” adds Dr. Vatedka, “DIGIPIN is a more compact and standardised India-specific representation, designed such that DIGIPIN Level-1 grid lines align with the Survey of India’s 0.25° x 0.25° topographic sheets used for mapping at 1:50,000 scale. This ensures consistency in mapping and aligns with existing geospatial infrastructure.”
Easy to understand and use, the system does not store or reveal any personal information, or identify an individual. Like GPS coordinates, it only tells us where a spot is, but in a shorter and simpler format, which can also be read by machines. Being purely location-based, it does not change even if a road is renamed or a new building comes up. It can also work offline and, as a decentralised, open-source system, can be integrated with other digital services and GIS systems.
Smart services
Dr. Durbha views DIGIPIN as a spatial link connecting different systems, processes, services and databases across healthcare, transportation, water, sanitation and other areas, enabling the kind of integrated delivery of services that smart cities aim to achieve. “People are already putting geospatial information to a lot of use, but everybody may do things in their own way, making it difficult to interoperate. DIGIPIN provides a common, standardised way of referring to a location,” he says.
DIGIPIN, with clear promise across municipal and commercial services, urban planning, emergency response and government communication, is still in its early days. Experts recommend greater focus on strengthening governance, accountability, public awareness, linguistic inclusivity and the ability to deal with typically Indian urban complexities.
AI Can Analyse Your Investments, But Should You Trust It With Your Money?According to Dr. Durbha, accelerating adoption requires substantial government intervention. “We need an ecosystem that encourages people and companies to start using DIGIPIN, integrate it into their own systems and build applications around it, as they’ve done with Google Maps,” he says.
Some of that is beginning to happen. Rapido recently integrated the DIGIPIN framework. Others like Flipkart, Amazon, Meesho, Delhivery and Swiggy are reportedly running pilots. Power company TP Central Odisha Distribution Limited has assigned DIGIPIN codes to over 93,000 transformers and 19 lakh poles in a bid to improve field visibility and response times. As Dr. Durbha avers, “End users stand to benefit in a myriad of ways.”
Finding DIGIPIN
Use a device with satellite-based location capability.
Open India Post’s “Know Your DIGIPIN” website. No account or login is required.
Allow access to your location. Alternatively, enter latitude and longitude. You will get the DIGIPIN for exactly where you are. If you move even a few metres, the DIGIPIN might change.
Some map applications like Mappls MapmyIndia can also help find DIGIPIN.
Exercise caution while sharing your precise location with others by way of DIGIPIN.