Google launches search feature for night and food shelters

NEW DELHI: Google has teamed up with the Indian government to launch a feature that can help find government-run food and night shelters. The feature is aimed at helping those who have been the most impacted by the coronavirus-led lockdown.

Union minister for electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said, “Now you can use Google Maps, Search and Google Assistant to find out food shelters and night shelters near you and help a needy person." This has been developed by @GoogleIndia in collaboration with @mygovindia, Prasad posted on Twitter on Monday.




The need for such a feature arose as information about government-run night and food shelters was not easily available.

All states will be required to provide information about night and food shelters to MyGov, which will then pass it on to Google to update data.

Separately, Google India has also rolled out updates and recommendations for small and medium businesses on how they can make necessary changes on their website to effectively communicate with customers regarding changes in operations and product availability, among other things.