You can use Google Maps for more than just navigation and checking the traffic. Street View allows you to roam around some of the most popular areas and landmarks across the world right from the screen in front of you. The feature is a boon to have when planning a vacation to a new international destination, and you need to familiarize yourself with the locality in which your hotel is located. Street View launched in 2011 and is available in most major countries except India. In 2016, citing security risks, the country's government denied Google permission to roll out the feature. Six years later, the big G is finally relaunching Street View in India by partnering with two local companies.

Google has partnered with Genesys and Tech Mahindra to bring Street View to 10 Indian cities, with plans to expand the feature to 50 cities by the end of the year. For now, Street View in Google Maps is available across Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Nashik, Vadodara, Ahmednagar, and Amritsar. This is the first time Google has licensed data for Street View imagery. It has so far collected the data necessary for the feature by deploying its own vehicles mounted with an array of cameras on top.

The company has been able to relaunch Street View following the debut of the geospatial policy in India last year. Under the new regulations, local companies can collect data with a certain level of fidelity and can then license it to third parties who can integrate it into their services (via TechCrunch). On its part, Google is opening the Street View API for local developers to take advantage of.

Additionally, Google is partnering with local traffic authorities in different Indian cities to show speed limits and promote safe driving. The feature will first roll out in Bengaluru, where both entities will also work to optimize and reduce signal wait times. Further, the big G has partnered with traffic authorities and aggregators in Delhi, Kolkata, and six other Indian cities to display information about road closures and accidents.