Warning of disaster in a jiffy

The Bagalore-based Geneva Software Technologies on Monday launched a pilot project for its newly-developed Natural Disasters Information System (NDIS).

NDIS alerts people of an area in just half a minute on an emergency in their local language though SMS, voice and wireless public address system, company sources said.

The NDIS pilot project was inaugurated by Union minister for science & technology and ocean development Kapil Sibal.

Speaking to Business Standard, Geneva Software Technology's director (sales) said, NDIS will help people to evacuate and move to safer zones, thereby reducing the loss of lives and property. Chennai and Nagapattinam have been chosen as the pilot sites for sending the warning.

He said that the uniqueness of the system lies in the fact that following an alert from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), Geneva's web interface will be used to compose the alert message which will then be sent to its server in Bangalore.

The message will be translated into 14 Indian languages along with dynamically-generated voice messages.

The messages will be sent to the mobiles on the basis of the places of origin of the mobile users and the voice message will be streamed as an outbound call.

The voice message will also be sent to wireless public address systems for direct alert. The process will take about 33 seconds, Singh said.