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Did you also get a WhatsApp message from Sardana International School (SIS), Dewas?

TL;DR — I received an unsolicited WhatsApp marketing broadcast from Sardana International School, Dewas (SIS Dewas) promoting their NDA coaching and boarding school admissions. I have never been a parent, student, or enquiry at this school. If you've received the same message, you're not alone — and under TRAI's TCCCPR 2018 rules, this kind of bulk promotional messaging from a 10-digit personal-looking number without your consent is exactly what the regulator has been cracking down on.

What I received from Sardana International School, Dewas

Out of nowhere, a WhatsApp message landed in my inbox from Sardana International School (branded as SIS Dewas, based on Malhar Road, near Silver Park Colony, Balgarh, Dewas, Madhya Pradesh). The broadcast featured:

  • A glossy creative titled "Sardana's NDA Achievers — Marching Towards the Nation's Honor"
  • Photos of 11 students who allegedly cleared NDA
  • Promotion of their "Foundation / Target Course for NDA" and NDA Complete Preparation (Written + SSB) program
  • A "Call / WhatsApp: 7909535000" CTA
  • Follow-up Hindi marketing copy about the school's boarding environment, their "mobile-free" hostel, and admissions

I have never filled an enquiry form on their website, never visited the campus, never given my number to a Sardana counsellor, and don't live in Dewas. So how did I end up on their WhatsApp broadcast list?

The SIS Dewas WhatsApp spam pattern

I'm clearly not the only one. If you search social media for "Sardana International School Dewas" alongside terms like "WhatsApp" or "message", you'll find other people describing the same thing — unsolicited promotional broadcasts about:

  • NDA / Sainik School coaching (under their Sardana Defence Academy and Sardana Sainik School brand)
  • Boarding admissions for the upcoming session
  • JEE / NEET / CBSE result announcements
  • Generic "Join our Foundation / Target Course" pushes

The pattern looks like classic bulk WhatsApp marketing — a database of numbers (possibly scraped, purchased, or harvested from other coaching-industry sources) getting blasted with promotional creatives from what appears to be a 10-digit non-business number. That's precisely the "grey route" TRAI has been targeting.

What TRAI rules actually say about this

India's Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (TCCCPR 2018), along with the Second Amendment Regulations (February 2025), make this kind of messaging problematic. In short:

  1. Promotional communication requires explicit consent from the recipient. You cannot send a promotional broadcast to someone who never opted in.
  2. Senders must be registered on the DLT platform through an access provider, with proper header and content template registration. Bulk promos from ordinary 10-digit numbers are explicitly in TRAI's crosshairs.
  3. Five or more UCC (Unsolicited Commercial Communication) complaints against a single sender within 10 days can trigger suspension of their telecom resources and blacklisting across all operators.
  4. As of April 2025, the complaint window is 7 days (up from 3) from receipt of the unsolicited message.
  5. TRAI has specifically acknowledged the migration of spam to WhatsApp and RCS and is pushing access providers to act.

"Private school" or "coaching institute" is not a carve-out. Promotional messaging is promotional messaging.

"Mobile-free hostel" — a quick note on the irony

There's a fun contradiction worth flagging. The SIS Dewas marketing leans heavily on the idea that their hostel is a "mobile-free, discipline-focused, goal-oriented environment" that keeps kids away from the distractions of phones, TV, and urban chaos. It's the main selling hook on sardanainternationalschool.com.

And yet the same institution — allegedly chaired by [CHAIRMAN NAME — verify from school's Chairman's Message page before publishing] — is happy to push glossy marketing creatives into random people's WhatsApp inboxes to get attention. The "don't let phones distract our students" school is, itself, using your phone to distract you.

You can draw your own conclusions.

What I'm doing about the SIS Dewas WhatsApp message

If you've also received unsolicited promotional messages from Sardana International School Dewas (or any institution), here's the short playbook:

1. Report inside WhatsApp

Open the chat → tap the contact name at the top → scroll down → "Report" and "Block". Also tick "Report and block" to send the last 5 messages to WhatsApp for review. Repeated reports cascade into account-level action.

2. Report to TRAI via DND / 1909

  • Install the TRAI DND 2.0 app (Android / iOS), log in with your number, and file a UCC complaint with a screenshot and the sender number.
  • Or forward the spam to 1909 in the format: UCC, <sender number>, DD/MM/YY.
  • You have 7 days from receipt of the message to file.

3. Report via the Chakshu portal (Sanchar Saathi)

Visit sancharsaathi.gov.in → Chakshu → report suspected fraud / unsolicited commercial communication received over call, SMS, or WhatsApp. Upload the screenshot and the sender number.

4. If it's persistent, escalate

  • Write to the school directly asking them to remove your number from their database and explain where they got it from (you have a right to know under the DPDP Act, 2023 framework for personal data).
  • File a consumer complaint on the National Consumer Helpline (1915 / consumerhelpline.gov.in) if they keep messaging after a documented opt-out request.

The bigger problem with coaching-industry WhatsApp spam

Sardana International School, Dewas isn't unique — it's just one example of a broader issue in Tier-2 and Tier-3 coaching hubs. Schools and coaching institutes in places like Dewas, Indore, Kota, Patna, and Sikar routinely buy or scrape databases of phone numbers filtered by pincode or school board and blast WhatsApp creatives to them. It works because:

  • WhatsApp open rates dwarf SMS and email.
  • TRAI enforcement on OTT platforms is weaker than on SMS.
  • Parents genuinely searching for boarding schools and NDA coaching do convert.
  • The cost of a reputational hit from a few complaints is tiny compared to the conversion uplift.

The more people who actually report these messages — with screenshots — the faster this changes. TRAI's February 2025 regulations specifically widened scope to 10-digit personal-looking numbers used for bulk promos, so the reporting mechanisms now have real teeth.

Final thoughts: SIS Dewas and WhatsApp broadcasting

If you run an educational institution and your marketing strategy depends on unsolicited WhatsApp broadcasts to people who never asked for your content, that's not "growth marketing" — that's a compliance problem and a trust problem wrapped in a glossy creative.

Sardana International School, Dewas has a slick website, a strong result-display game, and clearly invests in brand design. That makes it even stranger that the distribution channel is bottom-of-the-barrel bulk WhatsApp. There are 50 ways to acquire parents of Class 8/9/10 students ethically — SEO, Google Ads to parent intent keywords, organic Instagram, referral programs with existing families, education fairs. Blasting strangers isn't one of them.

If you got the same message, please report it. The system only works when people actually file.

Did you also receive a WhatsApp message from SIS Dewas / Sardana International School? Drop a comment with the date you got it — I'm collecting instances to include in a follow-up.