Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), the premier Telecom R&D centre of the Government of India, has been conferred the  “SKOCH Award-2025” for its Cell Broadcast Solution (CBS).  The award ceremony was held as part of the 104th SKOCH Summit on the theme “Resourcing Viksit Bharat”.  

The SKOCH Award goes to individuals, projects, and institutions, both government and & private, across India for outstanding work in improving governance and development, recognising excellence in sectors like finance, tech, health, education, and grassroots work, essentially honouring those making a significant, positive impact on citizens and the nation.  

C-DOT’s Cell Broadcast Solution is a disaster and emergency platform. It brings disaster alert generation agencies- the India Meteorological Department (IMD) for weather, Central Water Commission (CWC) for floods.

More it brings the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) for tsunamis/oceanic events, Defence Geo-informatics Research Establishment (DGRE) for landslides, and the Forest Survey of India (FSI) for forest fires. 

Not the least, it covers all mobile operators for the delivery of broadcast messages; State Disaster Management Authorities (SDMAs) and   National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) for approving the alerts & disaster management, on a single integrated unified platform.

This unified platform provides end-to-end solutions for the delivery of near-real-time life-saving emergency information in affected areas to mobile phones through cellular networks. 

This indigenous, cost-effective and fully automated system has enabled geo-targeted, multi-hazard alerting with multi-lingual (21 languages) support, improving overall efficiency of disaster risk reduction & management activities. 

The initiative aligns with the United Nations initiative of Early Warnings for All (#EW4All), International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU’s) – Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), ‘Call to Action’ and promotes the United Nations SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) while enhancing the country’s capacity building efforts towards disaster resilience.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Rajkumar Upadhyay, CEO, C-DOT, said, "We are honoured to win the prestigious SKOCH Award 2025. It is a meaningful recognition of C-DOT’s mission to place technology at the service of citizens, which can reach even the remotest and vulnerable regions of the country. Our Cell Broadcast Solution strengthens the public safety system by enabling geo-targeted, timely dissemination of information to citizens affected by disasters.  

C-DOT is a premier research and development centre,  under the aegis of the Department of Telecommunications, Government of India, for telecommunication technologies. C-DOT has been instrumental in developing indigenous technologies supporting government initiatives like Digital India and Make in India. It is currently working on futuristic technologies like 5G, 6G, Quantum, Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity.