Google Maps has been blamed for fatal accidents in India.An Indian politician recently suggested to the Parliament that the country should develop homegrown mapping solutions.Digital mapping experts believe these incidents are not specific to Google Maps and instead reveal systemic challenges to mapping Indian roads.

In July 2024, Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal announced that his ride-hailing company had transitioned away from Google Maps to its in-house navigation platform — a move that he said would save $1 billion. On X, he encouraged developers to “#ExitGoogleMaps” for Ola Maps, promising a year’s worth of free access. By December, Google, too, had introduced a range of price cuts for Indian developers.

Google should not be held liable because it is “not a public utility,” Arnav Gupta, who has worked as a product engineer at companies including Meta, JioCinema, and Zomato, told Rest of World, referring to the police complaint from the November 2024 accident. Much of the onus of keeping firms and citizens in the loop falls on local government agencies, he said.

Just wanna say, https://osm.org/ is an amazing map that is open and entirely created from efforts of millions of users. If any part of the map is missing or incorrect, you can just fix it.