The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has said that cyclone Yaas has had minimal impact on telecom infrastructure and the networks were extensively used to alert people in local languages to reduce damages.
The government noted that this was the first-time voice messages were used to reach out to people in local languages and alert them about the cyclone Yaas threat.
As per the government, on May 24 and 25, the Common Alert Protocol (CAP) of DoT and CDoT were extensively used by state disaster management authorities (SDMAs) in West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh to disseminate the cyclone alert messages free of cost.
As part of this exercise, a total of more than 60 million bulk messages were sent in local languages alerting residents. Of these, 38.7 million were in West Bengal, 24.3 million in Odisha and 3.64 million in Andhra Pradesh.
In addition, the DoT has also allowed intra-circle roaming in the cyclone hit areas to enable subscribers to use any telecom network which is available in their area without any extra cost.
According to industry sources, the impact on telecom infrastructure has been to the tune of 5-7 per cent and mainly because of power outages. The services in the affected area is expected to be restored once the power is made available.
The cyclone impacted districts include East Medinipur, West Medinipur, Bakura, South 24 Pargana and Jhargram in West Bengal and Balasore, Bhadrak, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Jajpur, Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj in Odisha.
