Move over long addresses, BBMP ready with digital door numbers

AK00CA05 could be a neater, simpler address instead of No 10, 4th Cross, 8th Main, near Malleswaram Club, Malleswaram, Bengaluru  560 002.

In a city with 23.7 lakh households, finding an address is often a nightmare as roads criss-cross, and citizens rely on landmarks to get to their destinations.

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) wants to put an end to the confusion.

 Since February this year, the civic body has been working on a project to provide a Digital Identification Number (DIN), or a simple alphanumeric code, for every property in the city.

The DINs are embedded with GPS coordinates to make addresses easier to find.

 "The project will be finalised this month," BBMP commissioner N Manjunath Prasad said. "It will help locate an address to its exact point as the code is attached with latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates."

The digital door numbers can be shared with friends, delivery services, ambulance and cabs.

"If the code is keyed into Google Maps, the location is identified instantly," Prasad said, adding that the codes would also help the police and the department of posts.

 The BBMP's own GIS-Enabled Property Tax Information System (GEPTIS) serves as the basis for the DIN project.

The civic body has 18.5 lakh properties in the tax bracket, with each having a unique property identifier (PID).

"The digital identification number is independent of the PID," an official from the BBMP information technology wing clarified.

 Each DIN is expected to be 7-11 characters long. "The entire city has been divided into 800 grids, each 1 sq km in size.

These grids are further divided into microgrids. That is the level of detailing, BBMP special commissioner (finance) Manoj Rajan said.

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Second in India  

Bengaluru is the second city after Hyderabad to adopt digital door numbers.

Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation had roped in tech start-up Zippr, and spent Rs 5 crore on the project.

The BBMP is doing it in-house at a fraction of the cost.