New Postcode for India

New postcodes……for INDIA

When I order new product from Amazon, I have to just provide postcode and house number to order. When I call HMRC ( revenue & customs) I have to just provide two pieces of information to provide my complete address. When I have to travel to new place I just need to know postcode to enter into my navigation software and it knows where to take me.

All above is possible because granular postcode system in the UK & detailed maps of land being maintained by relevant authorities. Postcodes in the UK are very granular, in fact a postcode takes you to a street level or sometime 16 houses in a block. Even US zipcode is not as granular. Entire postcode system simplifies many tasks about address lookup, address validation, credit checking, logistics and so on.

Compare this with Indian postcode system. A PIN (postal index number) typically covers half a million population. So you need lengthy address which contains references to landmarks such as school, temple, government building or historical place (i.e. behind XYZ school etc). On top of that there is no consistency so there is no way to verify this against any database. So it is a challenge to find a place without asking anyone else. Either delivery man/postman should be familiar with each and every house in that area or be lucky to ask relevant person who knows about that premises.

When we combine this with lack of granular maps of land; it is simply inefficient for postal department and courier companies (and they still do good job!)

If we combine this with sparsely populated places in rural area or temporary unorganised (and sometime unauthorised) housing such as slums; problem becomes much larger.

The system needs change. It needs to be more detailed, more organised and systematic. Possibly allows easy integration with navigation software and database systems as well. But there are other on ground challenges to meet as well.

• There is constant development happening across India. Every year thousands of new building, houses are built
• Existing places are converted or demolished
• Large population lives in farm houses away from villages and cities.
• Unorganised housing such as temporary dwellings and slums are difficult to organise and allocate numbering for.
• And of-course sheer scale of Indian population and geography

There are several options possible.

1. Expand on existing PIN code and add more segments to it. For example in US they created extended ZIP code. This allows far small area under one extended zip code.

For example a PIN code which reads like 411 002 would become more granular such as 411002-7878. So each current PIN code can be divided into 9999 segments.

2. Create new system from ground up.
   1. Create system similar to what RTO department did. For example typical car number in Mumbai starts with MH-01; first two letters denominate state and next two digits are for district. Add further four digits to it. i.e. divide a district into 9999 zones to pin down specific location within possibly area of 500 meters. So a postcode for a specific segment in Malad (western mumbai) would read like MH-01-5643. COOL!

 It is still going to be challenging to make either system flexible enough to take care of imperfect/unorganised/unplanned housing. Keeping pace with demolitions and new builds will make it very difficult to keep this database up-to-date.

Also we have to have another matching database which contains physical geographical location of these postcodes. This is typically done by identifying GPS coordinates of particular postcode. Since we do not have official granular maps, it will take many years to perfect this system.

Instead – Why not use GPS coordinates for postcode system?

Using geo-coordinates for postcode purpose is not completely new concept. Many countries which did not have postcode systems; adopted geo-coding systems for their postal network.

GPS coordinates of a particular premises will not change ever. Also it is flexible enough to create postcode for new location based on GPS coordinates of that location. No duplicate entries ever. Also we do not need to create separate entry for GPS location because postcode itself acts as geographical coordinates making it easy to create new maps of new location and making it easier for navigation systems to crawl new locations in their database.

Biggest challenge of using GPS coordinates as it is that they are very long. For example GPS coordinates for a location in Mumbai are 18° 58′ 30″ , 72° 49′ 33″. I have excluded “North” and “East” from coordinates because India is in northern hemisphere and in East side of Greenwich (so they do not need to be specified separately). Now if we exclude other symbols, still we are left with 12 digit code (that’s double than current PIN code).

Above GPS coordinates are granular to approx 30 meter diameter. That is enough to use it for postcode purpose.

There are ways to shorten this code. To begin with we can be less granular. But that will forfeit the purpose of whole exercise.

We can use Base 36 encoding to convert into short digits.

For example 18° 58′ 30″  can be converted into 3ZDY and , 72° 49′ 33″ into FJD1.

OR we can combine all numeric digits and then use base 36 encoding to convert to one code such as – 2DDA TD1H

And this can be decoded to their GPS location with simple math, so you don’t need access to separate database to look into.

Numeric digits will be lengthy but easy to convey instead of alphanumeric code. Alphanumeric code will be short (and hence taking less space) and easy to remember but difficult to convey to someone over phone.

I am sure there are other ways to shorten this code.

Using GPS coordinates will help India to shape its modern logistics system. It will need some centralised database, but wont be pre-requisite to begin with. Using devices available in the market anyone can easily create postcode for themselves (to their own location) and anyone with simple GPS devices will be able to reach to a postcode and deliver intended package. Postal department and private courier companies will not need to spend billions on creating or extending existing system. Instead they will be able to utilise simple worldwide standard system immediately.

There are some proprietary geo-coding systems in operation, especially in small countries such as Mauritius adopted those systems; however patent & algorithm is owned by particular body. These companies provide free license to its users (i.e. postal departments and end users); however they hold and maintain database themselves. Cost of licensing database can be significant (running into thousands of pounds).

India should avoid using any proprietary concept or system for this purpose (even if free license is available). New postcode will be lifeline of logistics, postal, commerce and other crucial elements of country, hence a country of such magnitude should avoid dependence on external body for this purpose. I am sure with its knowledge-base and abundance of intellectuals & researchers new postcode system (albeit based on geo-tagging/geo-coding) will be possible.

it will be lengthy and costly to build up new database if government decides to build up database on its own using top-down approach. Instead using bottom to top approach new database can be built by people themselves once they know how to do it and provide them tools necessary to do it. This database can be then cross verified and corrected by government body over few years.

My intention of writing this article is to stimulate ideas to a specific problem. This is certainly not end solution, more input will be needed. So please feel free to discuss this article and comment on it.