Digital addressing can help save the govt `14,000 cr: Pataa co-founder

The brainchild of Rajat Jain and Mohit Jain, Pataa is a free-to-download mobile application that makes it easier for users to share their addresses. The co-founder of the startup Rajat, is a Stanford graduate, with an enterprising mind. Rajat is the one who drew up the blueprint of Pataa. He put down the specific features the application had to have and worked on building and getting Pataa out to the masses. Rajat has taken over the daily operations and product inception.

The Indore-based startup’s core belief and value of leadership, development and growth drive both its founders to improve and enhance the features in Pataa leading the company to successfully build an app that benefits individuals as well as organisations.

The free to use mobile app Pataa has been a boon to those living in smaller cities and neighborhoods where tiny lanes and bylanes are still nameless and delivery agents spend hours trying to track down the destination points to deliver various products and take up services. In an exclusive interview with Bizz Buzz, Rajat Jain, co-founder of Pataa said through their startup, farmers have been able to get easier access to loans and locate warehouses and buy or sell their lands. He said while their app makes it easier for people to track and locate their destination address, it also has a feature that allows its users to track and get live updates of the people en route to their address

How is Pataa not a map and navigation organisation?

Pataa’s inception was brought about with a vision to simplify the complex addressing system. We are an addressing organisation and not a maps and navigation one. We aim to aid businesses and governments through the use of technology in an attempt to diminish carbon emissions, mitigate the economic burden and make unserviceable areas serviceable. We also plan on aiding emergency services to provide prompt responses and save lives.

How can digital addresses help in last-mile guidance?

Digital addressing can prove to be of great benefit to logistics organisations as it can help provide optimised sorting and delivery operations. Pataa can greatly help delivery personnel reach the right address with accurate geotagged location with a precision of up to 3 square meters. This can also help personnel find the best and most optimised route for delivery and also ensure the package reaches the correct location, every time!

Why did you choose Indore specifically above other cities to establish a smart city?

Since we are residents of Indore, the cleanest city in India, we decided what better place to start such a great endeavour than our home. We will slowly but surely take our campaign to other cities, as our goal is for every home and office in our country to have their own unique digital address code.

How would your services help the government and the nation's economy?

Our nation annually bears massive unforeseen expenditure anywhere between Rs10,000 to 14,000 crore due to the unstructured and complex addressing system. Our services aim to help mitigate this massive expenditure for the government by implementing a digital addressing system. Not only this, we aim to help in diminishing the carbon emissions by ensuring people who use navigation technology are able to reach their destination without having to spend more time driving their vehicles looking for the location.

How would naming the unregistered addresses in rural areas benefit the residents there?

In India’ majority of the populated rural areas currently do not have a proper and structured address system. Therefore, availing emergency services and or other forms of government services and services from financial institutions is a big challenge. By providing them with a proper structured address, we aim to empower them to be able to avail all these facilities and make their lives easier.

When it comes to navigation services, how do you position yourself?

Pataa aims to facilitate navigation services through the implementation of a digital structured addressing ecosystem. Digital addresses, aka Pataas, don’t only comprise shortcodes for long addresses, but also have additional features like voice directions, property photos, route videos and other vital information that helps visually identifying one’s location easily. Pataa also allows you to see the live location of the visitor who is arriving at your doorstep. This gives you a fair idea of when your visitor is reaching you.

What's your view on Andhra Pradesh's initiative to use drones for agriculture & land digitisation?

The technological revolution in the past decade has brought about a plethora of devices and gadgets that have made human lives easier. One such device of exceptional potential is the invention of drones. Using drones in the agriculture domain can greatly alleviate manual labour required and also greatly optimise operations thereby saving the industry time and money. This is a great move towards the digitisation of the agriculture industry. With such technological assistance, farms can reap greater yields as drones can be utilised for monitoring crops, sprinkling fertilisers and pesticides and irrigation.

How is Pataa different from other navigation apps?

Pataa is not a navigation app but an advanced ecosystem of interlinked products that simplify the complex addressing system. Our technology aims to aid in navigation with some of our great features like voice directions and property photos in our digital addresses and help people arrive at locations with ease without the need of calling for directions. Not only does our technology grant the ability to create a personalised digital address shortcode, we have also mapped the entire planet into 57 trillion+3x3m blocks with their own unique identities, called square codes. With this technology, we intend to make remote and unknown locations accessible and serviceable as well.

How can drones impact the economy in India?

Drones can play a crucial role in aiding in logistics, tracking and monitoring of businesses and other government services and entities. Drones can help alleviate costs and improve efficiency in various domains. With the wide acceptance and implementation of drones, a lot of new opportunities will be generated which will lead to an increase in employment for drone manufacturing and drone operators in the sector.

Please explain about drone services and the supply-chain industry.

Drones can greatly aid in the distribution and supply chain industry as small to medium deliveries can easily be carried out through them that too autonomously.

Drones can be used for the delivery of low shelf life goods directly to customers. They can also be used to provide and procure raw materials needed for production quickly and in small batches thereby helping optimise procurement expenditure.

How can drone services revolutionise the concept of home deliveries?

Drones can greatly automate the delivery chain and make the process more effective and efficient. Drones can deliver items quickly and with ease thereby enhancing the customer experience as well. In fact, here at Pataa we have developed technology that aids drone delivery through exact geotagged locations only for drones. Pataa for drones differs from a normal Pataa as drone Pataa must be in an open area of your property so drones can easily spot, land and take off.

What sectors do you think are most likely to make use of drone technology?

Drones will be most useful in the logistics, surveillance and government service departments due their small form factor and easy manoeuvrability though tight areas. Drones can help in search and rescue missions as well in the same manner.

Is India marching towards a drone-savvy country?

In a preliminary analysis, there is evidence to show that India may be inclined towards utilising drones as currently drones are primarily being used in the agriculture sector, and it can be a major boon for other sectors as well, but apart from that it could be too early to say for sure.

How will drones help India's agro-industry?

With drone deliveries, the Indian agro sector can gain more momentum in direct sales for farmers. This will help farmers reach more direct customers and benefit from elevated revenue and additional revenue streams rather than relying on first party vendors entirely.

How do you project the future of drone delivery?

Drone deliveries hold a promising potential in the future of the logistics sector due to ease of manoeuvrability. If technology is developed aptly to utilise the potential of drones, they could very well be the future of the logistics industry. Apart from these instances, drones can also be used in regions that are difficult to access or have been hit by a natural calamity. These drones can help deliver relief packages to those people.