Google lists food, night shelters in COVID-19 affected cities

When the ongoing nationwide lockdown was announced back in March, there was an exodus of migrant labourers, trying to get back home. This is how Google decided to help.

At a time when the Coronavirus pandemic is spreading fast, not everyone is staying at their home. There are some who're stranded in another city, far away from their family. Some others are in a much worse condition, and are left with no shelter or food. In the wake of the current situation, the government has helped to set up several food and night shelters across India.

Adding to this government drive, Google Maps has now started listing the location of these public food and night shelters. According to Google, this feature is currently available in over 30 cities across the country. As per Google’s recent tweet, the tech giant is working closely with government authorities to help migrant workers and affected people in different cities to avail food and shelter facilities.

Working closely with @mygovindia, we are now surfacing locations of food shelters & night shelters on Google Maps, Search and Google Assistant, to help migrant workers & affected people across cities.

Please help this reach those who need it most.@PMOIndia @GoI_MeitY @rsprasad pic.twitter.com/g9LwYfikrW

— Google India (@GoogleIndia) April 6, 2020

The location of these public food and night shelters can be accessed through Google Maps, Google Search, and Google Assistant. While this feature is currently available in English, Google is said to be working towards enabling this feature in Hindi, and other regional languages.

All one needs to do is access the Google Maps application on his/her mobile phone and search for ‘Food shelters in ’ or ‘Night shelters in ’.

This initiative comes in light of migrants' mass exodus during the ongoing nationwide lockdown. Many of them were left stranded without food or shelter, and the initiative aims to provide them with some respite.