Data Quality Review: Indian Postal-Code Candidates in OSM

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1

Data Quality Review: Indian Postal-Code Candidates in OpenStreetMap

Hello OpenStreetMap Community,

I am relatively new to OpenStreetMap. While learning and conducting a data-quality audit, I performed a rule-based comparison of Indian postal-code tags (addr:postcode=* and postal_code=*) against India Post state-level PIN prefix ranges.

The audit identified 2,142 objects for manual review, containing 430 distinct PIN values across 23 states and union territories.

These are review candidates—not confirmed errors. State-prefix mismatches can be legitimate because postal delivery areas may cross administrative borders, and some records may be outdated or affected by historical reorganisations.

Examples requiring verification

  • Undrajavaram and Chilakapadu, Andhra Pradesh — 359687

  • Vaddegudem and Kommara, Andhra Pradesh — 127006

  • Barwani, Madhya Pradesh — 111111

  • Central Vista, Delhi — 020626

  • Mattaya, Kerala — 979303

  • Bihar Sharif, Bihar — 903101

Some may be clear typos or placeholder values, while others require verification against authoritative postal information and local knowledge.

Important review guidance

Please do not change a postcode solely because it does not match the state prefix. Before editing, please verify:

  • The official postal delivery area

  • Nearby post offices

  • Border-area delivery arrangements

  • Current local knowledge

  • Whether the tag belongs to the object itself or was copied from nearby data

The attached public share link contains:

https://filebin.net/osm_india_review

  • State

  • Place name

  • OSM class and place type

  • OSM object ID

  • Direct OSM link

  • Current tagged PIN

  • Expected state prefix

  • Coordinates

Per-state PIN counts may overlap because the same PIN can appear in multiple areas or border regions. Therefore, the all-India total is the deduplicated count of 430 unique PIN values, while 2,142 is the total number of flagged objects.

I am relatively new to OSM and do not yet have enough experience to review and correct all of these records safely. I am sharing this dataset so experienced contributors from any country can help validate the findings, correct confirmed errors where appropriate, or organise the work into manageable review tasks. Guidance on the proper workflow would also be greatly appreciated.

This dataset is intended only as a review aid. No automatic edits should be made from this list.

Thank you to everyone who can review, provide guidance, or help improve the data.

2

Hello & welcome

Unfortunately, the IP site would appear to be copyright India Post so we probably wouldn’t be able to use any of their data without prior permission.

3

Hello Graeme,

Thank you for contributing to OpenStreetMap and for helping improve its accuracy and usefulness for people around the world. I appreciate you taking the time to raise this licensing concern.

I agree that the India Post website itself should not be scraped or republished without permission. My reference is not to copy the India Post website, but to the separate official dataset published by the Department of Posts on India’s Open Government Data Platform:

https://www.data.gov.in/catalog/all-india-pincode-directory-through-webservice

And also we can use the alternative site that provides pin codes verification

The catalogue identifies the Department of Posts as the contributor, says it was released under NDSAP, and states that published datasets are licensed under the Government Open Data License – India.

That license provides a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive right to use, adapt, publish, and create derivative works for lawful commercial and non-commercial purposes, subject to its conditions, including accurate use and prominent attribution.

For convenience, I have also uploaded a copy of the downloaded dataset here:

The official data.gov.in catalogue remains the authoritative source; the Filebin link is only a temporary mirror for download and review.

I would use the dataset with attribution such as:

“Source: Department of Posts, Ministry of Communications, Government of India — All India Pincode Directory, published through the Open Government Data Platform India. Licensed under the Government Open Data License – India.”

OpenStreetMap will remain the source for geographic places and mapping data; the postal dataset would only be used as a postal-code reference or validation layer.

As I am new to OSM, so if there are any additional community guidelines or attribution requirements I should follow, I would appreciate your guidance.

Thank you
DS