Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday dedicated the Early Warning Dissemination System (EWDS) to the people for last mile connectivity on the occasion of Odisha State Disaster Preparedness Day and National Day for Disaster Reduction.
The CM triggered the alert siren system and activated the Group SMS services from the Rabindra Mandap here.
The project was implemented under the National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project (NCRMP) with World Bank assistance.
The EWDS aims at establishing a full-proof communication system to address the existing gap of disseminating disaster warning up to the community level which would enable minimising the loss from cyclones and Tsunami.
The project is being implemented in 22 coastal blocks of six coastal districts in Balasore, Bhadrak, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Puri and Ganjam of Odisha. The total project cost is Rs 75.09 crore out of which Rs 66.77 crore is from the Centre and Rs 8.32 core from the Odisha Government.
The Last Mile Connectivity aims at information dissemination from the State, District and Block Levels to communities and vice versa, ensuring that the Last Man living nearest to the sea is well informed of an upcoming cyclone or tsunami. Besides, the project aims at Strengthening of State Emergency Operation Centre (SEOC), District Emergency Operation Centre (DEOC) and Block Emergency Operation Centre (BEOC).
The EWDS comprises of all modern communication technologies such as Digital Mobile Technology, Satellite Based Mobile Data Voice Terminal and The Mass messaging system is a web based solution and can be provided as managed services model. All components of the package shall be accessible through standard web browser without any need of extra client software. The web based application Software hosted centrally on a cloud and can be accessed through a secured web Interface from SEOC or any other location for sending Group based and Location based alerts messages.
Group Based Alerts: The system is a GUI based and able to send SMS and Voice messages to the predefined Mobile/ PSTN Nos. Such messages will go to the Media Broadcast Stations even which will broadcast the said warnings on the AM/FM Radios, TV, /alert Towers etc. Such a System will encompass Alerting / Notifying known individuals, simply by sending to a group database.
The selected technologies – Universal Communication Interface which can be used for communication between different technologies like Analog/ VHF/ HF/ TETRA/ HAM Radios/ DMR / Sat phones/ Mobile Phone Mobile Cellular -CDMA/ Landline PSTN Telephone / VoIP Telephone are robust, redundant and can be used for different applications and groups. The 122 Alert sirens which are installed at Cyclone shelters, Govt. buildings, Fish Landing centers and at Tourist Sea beaches can be activated from SEOC.
The Alert sirens can also be activated from block headquarters as a redundancy path if State to block backbone fails.
