IT giant Google has come up with an initiative enabling people, migrant workers in particular, moving to their home locations by foot to know food and night shelters located nearby.
People can find these locations across 30 cities on Google Maps, Search and Google Assistant by searching for ‘food shelters’ or ‘night shelters’ in the particular city.
People can enter the queries relating to food and night shelters into Google Search or ask their Google Assistant on smartphones or on a KaiOS device.
The service, presently offered in English, would soon be available in Hindi and efforts are under way to bring the service to other Indian languages in the coming weeks apart from adding additional shelters in more cities across the country.
Google said it has worked with the State and Central government authorities to surface locations of these relief centres.
Livelihoods disrupted
The effort started in view of the disruption caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic to scores of people affecting their livelihood and regular access to food. It would be easier to access the facility with features like quick access shortcuts that would appear beneath the search bar on the Google Maps app, shortcuts on Google Maps on KaiOS feature phones and food and night shelter pins appearing on the map by default when the Maps app is first opened.
Google India senior programme manager Anal Ghosh said the company was making concerted effort to build solutions that help people in the times of need. The effort is aimed at making information easily available to users in need and ensure that they availed themselves of the food and shelter services being provided by the government authorities.
