Bengaluru’s ambitious plan to provide every property in the city with a digital door number is facing legal trouble after a Hyderabad-based startup issued a notice over plagiarism, as per a report by Arpita R in The Times of India.
Zippr Private Limited has accused BBMP of using its tech-design for the DiGi7 digital door-numbering system without proper authorisation.
In a letter, the company claimed that BBMP officials have been corresponding with them since 2015 and it included detailed documents about the software and its use.
Zippr claims to have already implemented the software in parts of Hyderabad and Vijayawada.
BBMP commissioner N Manjunath Prasad said, “Many agencies gave presentations but that doesn’t mean we’re using their services. I never floated any tender for this as our IT team is capable. Their technology is not rocket science and there’s a lot of literature available online. It’s also facing a legal case for IPR theft.”
Prasad added that a comprehensive database was already available and only the software had to be developed based on it and said that the IT team worked on it for around eight months.
Meanwhile, a Pune-based individual maintained that he had filed a patent for the technology in 2010 and Zippr had wrongly claimed it as its own.
In this respect, he had also written to BBMP asking them not to do business with Zippr.
A Zippr spokesperson said that there is an injunction by a Hyderabad city civil court against this person accusing him of fraud and this bars him from making allegations against the company.
The DiGi7 system aims to provide a unique seven-digit identification number to all 19 lakh properties across the city.
The civic body says it has developed the framework in-house at a cost of Rs 83,000 and it will be based on the GIS Enabled Property Tax Information System (GEPTIS) - a database created by mapping all properties within BBMP limits, giving their location including the road and ward.