Government drops mandatory Sanchar Sathi pre-installation plan due to rising public acceptance

A woman checks her mobile phone at a traffic junction in Kolkata

The government has decided not to go ahead with mandatory pre-installation of the Sanchar Saathi app on all new smartphones, even as the platform witnesses a sharp rise in citizen uptake and daily fraud reporting.

Officials said the original mandate was driven by the need to extend basic cyber-safety tools to every mobile user, particularly those less aware of digital risks. The Sanchar Saathi app, they stressed, is secure, has no surveillance or hidden functions, and is designed solely to help citizens protect themselves from cyber fraud.

According to the government, the app is a key instrument of “jan bhagidari”—encouraging collective citizen participation by enabling users to report bad actors and suspicious activities. Importantly, users are free to uninstall the app at any time.

Sanchar Saathi’s rapid adoption appears to have strengthened the government’s confidence in a voluntary approach.

So far, 1.4 crore users have downloaded the app, collectively contributing information on around 2,000 fraud incidents every day. Uptake has surged in recent days; six lakh citizens registered for downloads in a single day, a 10x jump, which officials describe as a clear expression of public trust in the government’s cyber-safety initiative.

The government added that while the mandate was intended to accelerate access for digitally vulnerable users, the growing organic acceptance of Sanchar Saathi shows that citizens themselves are recognising its utility in safeguarding against cyber threats.