New Delhi, August 28 (IANS). 'Sanchar Sathi', the flagship citizen-centric initiative of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), has achieved record performance in July 2026 by helping recover 77,692 lost or stolen mobile handsets. The Communications Ministry said in a statement on Friday that this is the first time that the number of mobile phones recovered through this platform in a single month has crossed the 75,000 mark.
Hailing this achievement, Union Communications Minister Jyotiraditya M. Scindia said that it is the result of growing public confidence in the Sanchar Saathi platform and strong coordination between the Department of Telecommunications, telecom service providers and police of various states and union territories.
According to the ministry's statement, the Department of Telecommunications is working on making this system more effective by taking continuous feedback from stakeholders, so that the recovery of lost or stolen mobile devices can be further increased.
The Digital Intelligence Unit of DOT and its regional offices played an important role in this success. These units worked with local police to trace the mobile devices and return them to their rightful owners. According to the data, a 201 percent increase has been recorded in monthly mobile seizures between April 2025 and July 2026.
Many new reforms have also been made to make the system more transparent and user-friendly. Now, information about the concerned police station along with mobile tracing report is made available to the citizens on SMS, email and portal.
Additionally, information about the use of a new SIM card in a stolen or lost mobile is also made available to the police, increasing the chances of tracking and recovering the device. In many cases, information about alternative mobile numbers is also shared with the investigating agencies.
The ministry said that after the mobile is recovered, users are also advised through SMS to factory reset the device, to ensure protection from any possible malware or unauthorized software.
Any citizen can register information about his lost or stolen mobile phone on Sanchar Sathi portal through a simple process. This facility is available on both the web portal and mobile app. After the complaint is registered, the concerned mobile is blocked on the Indian telecom network, so that its misuse can be prevented.
If someone tries to use that blocked mobile, it is identified by the network. After this, an alert is sent to the concerned citizen and police station, which speeds up the process of recovering the mobile and returning it to the rightful owner.
–IANS
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