A username could one day suffice as your address

The government is working on a UPI-style unique username-based digital addressing system that would enable people to send and receive parcels, letters, food deliveries and other services without sharing a conventional physical address.

India Post is leading the ambitious project to establish a standardised, interoperable geocoded addressing system that will allow every individual in any part of the country, be it on the ills, remote or rural areas, to have an address recognised and mapped accurately with a unique username, people aware of the development said.

Details like name, city or state can safely be put in an app, which would not be visible to outsiders, giving users a shot at protecting their privacy.


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India Post is currently waiting for approval from the finance ministry, after which it will be rolled out on the lines of other digital public infrastructure (DPI) initiatives like Aadhaar, unified payments interface (UPI), open network for digital commerce (ONDC), etc, the sources said.

As per the government, recognising address information management is a key component of public infrastructure and that is why it proposes to develop a DPI that supports the traditional addressing system by enabling users to depict and share their addresses in a standardised and geo-coded format.

“It enhances address precision, reduces errors in communication, and simplifies service delivery,” a policy document for the project said.

Titled Digital Hub for Reference and Unique Virtual Address (Dhruva), the project was conceptualised last year and work is ongoing for technology and other requirements.

Postal secretary Vandita Kaul said the idea for the project came in 2022 with a thematic group on geospatial governance related to address, chaired by the Department of Post and with members including officials from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Election Commission of India and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) that have large databases.

“All the stakeholders were interested in having two things: one is having locational intelligence and other is to standardise addresses across databases,” Kaul told ET.

The postal department has already implemented the locational intelligence part through its Digipin initiative, which uniquely identifies locations using geospatial data. Consumers can download the Digipin app and generate a 10-digit alphanumeric code, which is a unique location ID to a 4/4 square meter area of a location. This initiative simplifies location mapping, enhances logistics and emergency response, and ensures last-mile delivery, especially in rural and underserved areas.

Dhruva, which will have a digital address layer, will allow users to generate unique and customised labels (such as username@domain) to represent their Digipin and descriptive addresses and manage this information.

Similar to how a UPI ID eliminates the need to accurately recall and rewrite one’s account information every time while making a payment, the digital address will be designed to dispense with the need to rewrite address information repeatedly to avail of services.

Once a user creates a digital address, it can serve as a single point of reference. Consumers will be able to ‘manage’ their digital address – share, update their address information, or revoke their consent to sharing it through a unified interface.

To set up the requisite infrastructure for the project, the postal department is awaiting approval from the finance ministry. Apart from that, Rs 5,785 crore have been allocated to the postal department for IT modernisation projects from 2022-23 till 2029-30, of which 42% has been utilised.