The central telecom department is actively working in collaboration with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to enhance the country’s mobile-enabled disaster communication systems, in order to ensure timely information dissemination to citizens. The NDMA, the national body for disaster management, has taken a number of steps in this regard. A nationwide testing of the indigenous cell broadcasting system is underway to ensure swift dissemination of warnings during natural and manmade disasters, said an official statement from the Department of Telecommunications, under the Ministry of Communications. 

The telecom department has urged the public to cooperate with the authoities during this testing phase. As part of this exercise, citizens may receive test messages in both English and Hindi on their mobile phones. No action or input is required from recipients during this system validation phase, said the department. 

Here are 10 things to know about this exercise: 

• The department said that a C-DOT-developed system is now operational across all 36 States and UTs across the country, with alerts issued in more than 19 Indian languages for disasters and weather events. 
• Authorities have also operationalised an integrated alert system (SACHET) based on common alerting protocol (CAP) recommended by International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Developed by Centre of Development of Telematics (C-DOT), this system sends various disaster- or emergency-related alerts through SMS to the impacted citizens’ mobiles in case of emergencies.
• Disaster management authorities have used this system extensively to issue more than 6,899 crore SMS alerts in more than 19 Indian languages during natural disasters, weather warnings and cyclonic events.
• In addition to SMS, a cell broadcast technology is being implemented to cement alert dissemination in time-critical disaster situations such as tsunamis, earthquakes, lightning strikes, and manmade emergencies like gas leaks or chemical hazards, said the department. 
• In this system, notifications are sent to active mobile phones in an impacted area in a broadcast mode, ensuring the dissemination of information on a near-real time basis. 
• The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) has been entrusted with the task of the indigenous development and implementation of such a public emergency alerting system. The C-DOT is the country’s premier R&D center of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). 
• The testing of this system is being carried out in order to ascertain its efficacy and proper functioning before a countrywide rollout. 
• This testing will last for 2-4 weeks covering the entire country.
• During this period, mobile users with handsets that have CB test channels enabled will received the following message, as part of the nationwide testing exercise:

ENGLISH: 

This is a TEST Cell Broadcast message sent by the National Disaster Management

Authority 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.

(This is the English version. Users may also receive the Hindi version.)   

• “Once successfully tested and operationalised, the CB system will be used to disseminate alerts in multiple Indian languages across all mobile handsets regardless of test channel settings,” said the DoT. This is to ensure a wide and inclusive public reach during actual emergencies.