The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has announced that its digital-safety initiative Sanchar Saathi enabled the recovery of more than 50,000 lost and stolen mobile phones across India in October 2025 — marking the first time monthly recoveries have crossed this threshold.
With this milestone, total recoveries nationwide have now surpassed 700,000.
States such as Karnataka and Telangana topped the charts with each reporting over 100,000 recoveries, while Maharashtra followed with more than 80,000.
The increase reflects a 47 % surge in monthly recoveries between June and October 2025 — demonstrating the growing effectiveness and reach of the platform.
At the heart of this success is Sanchar Saathi’s robust, domestically developed system which integrates automated workflows and real-time device tracing. When a reported handset’s IMEI is reactivated with a new SIM, alerts are triggered to both the registered owner and the relevant police station — enabling faster recovery and preventing misuse.
DoT has called on citizens to download the Sanchar Saathi app — not only to report lost or stolen handsets, but also to verify the legitimacy of devices they plan to buy and to report suspicious calls or messages.