PM Modi Launches ‘Call Before u Dig’ App To Facilitate Excavation | Know How it Works

Last Updated: March 22, 2023, 13:55 IST

Utility owners will know about imminent digging activity near their utility assets and can interact with diggers. (Photo Credit: PTI)

The CBuD App will coordinate all proposed digging activities and safeguard existing underlying utility assets like optical fibre cables, water pipelines, electric cables, gas pipelines etc from damages.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a ‘Call Before u Dig’ (CBuD) app that would help in excavation and inaugurated the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Area Office and Innovation Centre in Delhi.

The newly launched app will help in coordination between excavation agencies and underground utility owners to prevent damage to utilities due to unplanned digging.

While speaking at the event, Prime Minister Modi said: “When we talk about bridging the technological divide, it is very natural to expect it from India.”

How Will It Work?

The CBuD App will coordinate all proposed digging activities and safeguard existing underlying utility assets like optical fibre cables, water pipelines, electric cables, gas pipelines etc from damages. It will provide an interface and communication channel between the digging agencies and utility asset owners.

Diggers will know the contact details of utility asset owners for coordination before start of digging by contacting asset owner and sending alerts to authorities informing proposed digging activity. Utility owners will know about imminent digging activity near their utility assets and can interact with diggers.

Diggers and utility asset owners will be given alerts via SMS, email and in-app notification and will also have the facility of ‘click to call’. A helpdesk number will support the users. The CBuD app will be integrated with PM GatiShakti NMP platform and shall utilize the mapped underground utility details at NMP.

India’s ITU Mission

ITU is the United Nations’ specialized agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs). Headquartered in Geneva, it has a network of field offices, regional offices and area offices.

India signed a Host Country Agreement in March 2022 with ITU for establishment of an area office. The area office in India also envisaged to have an Innovation Centre embedded in it, making it unique among other area offices of ITU.

The area office, fully funded by India, is located on the second floor of the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) building at Mehrauli in New Delhi.

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