The Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Communications, in collaboration with the NDMA, Government of India, has been actively enhancing mobile-enabled disaster communication systems across the country to provide timely information to citizens
New Delhi: National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA)has successfully operationalised Integrated Alert System (SACHET), developed by Centre of Development of Telematics (C-DOT), which is based on Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) recommended by International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
This system is already operational in all 36 States and Union Territories (UTs) of India and sends various disaster or emergency related alerts through SMS to mobiles of citizens affected in a particular geo-targeted area.
This system has been extensively used by disaster management authorities to issue over 6,899 crore SMS alerts in more than 19 Indian languages during various natural disasters, weather warnings, and cyclonic events.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Communications, in collaboration with the NDMA, Government of India, has been actively enhancing mobile-enabled disaster communication systems across the country to provide timely information to citizens.
To further strengthen alert dissemination in time-critical disaster situations such as tsunamis, earthquakes, lightning strikes, and man-made emergencies like gas leaks or chemical hazards, Cell Broadcast (CB) technology is being implemented in addition to SMS.
In Cell Broadcast System, the alerts are sent to mobile phones in the affected area in a broadcast mode and hence the dissemination of alerts happen in near real time.
The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), the premier R&D center of the Department of Telecom, has been entrusted with the indigenous development and implementation of the Cell Broadcast-based public emergency alerting system.
As part of the Pan-India rollout, testing of the CB system is being conducted to ascertain the efficacy and proper functioning of the system before it is rolled out. This testing will last for 2-4 weeks covering entire country. During this period, test messages in English and Hindi may be received by the public on their mobile handsets.
These “test messages” will be received only by mobile handsets that has CB test channels enabled.
During testing phase, these messages may also be received multiple times, through test channel, to test proper functioning of the system in the entire network of mobile towers (Base Station Trans receivers-BTS).
These test messages are part of a planned nationwide testing exercise and require no action from recipients.
The content of the test message will be as follows:
English:
This is a TEST Cell Broadcast message sent by the NDMA in coordination with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Government of India, as part of testing the Cell Broadcast solution for disseminating alerts. During the testing of the Cell Broadcast solution, you may receive this message multiple times on your mobile handset. Please ignore these message(s); no action is required at your end.