New Delhi, May 2 (IANS). India has achieved a great achievement. Nationwide mobile-based disaster communication systems were launched on Saturday. Meanwhile, on Saturday people received ‘very serious warning’ message on their mobile phones.
In fact, nationwide testing of the indigenous cell broadcast system is underway to ensure quick dissemination of disaster warnings. In this sequence, the government sent a testing alert on Saturday.
This alert was sent to the people simultaneously in Hindi and English, which read, “India has launched a cell broadcast service using indigenous technology, which will enable citizens to get immediate information about disaster. Vigilant citizens, safe nation. The public is not required to take any action on receiving this message. This is a test message.”
The mobile-based disaster communication system has been developed by the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications in collaboration with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Government of India, to ensure timely dissemination of critical information to citizens.
According to the Communications Ministry, this system is based on the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) recommended by the International Telecommunication Union. It is currently operational in all 36 states and union territories of India and provides disaster and emergency alerts through SMS to mobile users in geographically targeted areas.
The system has been widely used by disaster management authorities, sending over 134 billion SMS alerts in over 19 Indian languages so far during natural disasters, weather warnings and cyclonic events. To further strengthen alert dissemination in time-sensitive situations such as tsunami, earthquake, lightning and man-made emergencies such as gas leakage or chemical hazard, Cell Broadcast (CB) technology has been introduced along with SMS.
In cell broadcast systems, alerts are broadcast simultaneously to all mobile devices in a defined geographic area, ensuring near real-time delivery of alerts. Center for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), a premier research and development center of the Department of Telecommunications, has been entrusted with the responsibility of developing and implementing this indigenous cell broadcast-based public emergency alert system.
–IANS
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