The government is planning an expansion of the Common Area Protocol (CAP) disaster warning system to cover television, radio and railway stations to alert citizens in case of natural disasters or any sort of security issues. The CAP protocol which is developed by the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) for the National Disaster Management Authority (NDRF) is being upgraded to the second phase. The executive director was speaking on the sidelines of a workshop on CAP-based integrated alert systems.
C-Dot completed the first phase of CAP with all states on board and all major natural alert agencies- India Meteorological Department, Central Water Commission, Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, Defense Geoinformatics, Research Establishment and Forest Survey of India having joined the system, Raj Kumar Upadhyay said.
“We have incorporated a radio station, DTH player and railway station for sending out alerts. In the second phase, we will scale it up to cover all radio, TV, railway station, etc. for sending out warning alerts. It will be operational even at the district level,” Upadhyay said.
The CAP is being developed where local areas can be marked on a map in order to send out alerts. The map will identify all TV stations, telecom, DTH players, railway stations, etc. to sound alert.
“States have become very active. They don’t want to lose a single life due to any mishap. We expect the system to be scaled up and adopted across the country very soon,” Upadhyay said. The Secretary of Union Ministry of Telecom K Rajaraman mentioned that the platform should be leveraged to provide solutions at the local level.
