“Bangalore city needs an integrated call centre involving the police, health and civic departments,” Principal Secretary of Revenue Department Tushar Girinath said.
Summing up a three-day workshop on ‘International Practices in Building Resilient Cities’, Revenue Secretary and Chief of the Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority wing, Tushar Girinath, said he will hold a meeting with the commissioners of all these three departments in this regard.
He said the call centre should be set up on the lines of the Incident Command Centre in the US.
“In Bangalore, a number of call centres function under police, BBMP, Bescom, health department. In addition to this, the Disaster Management Authority has one call centre as an emergency operation centre at MS Building. One of the main suggestions in the workshop is that it is high time Bangalore had integrated call centres under one roof. In the US model, there will be an incident commander along with a public relations officer and a safety officer,” he said.
Girinath said he has already spoken to City Police Commissioner Raghavendra Auradkar in this regard. “Steps to set up the centre should be initiated immediately. I spoke to the police commissioner and he has promised to meet again in this regard,” he said.
The deliberations of the workshop will be submitted to the government in a week, Girinat said.
Additional Chief Secretary Kaushik Mukherjee said there was a need to sensitise people to react in case of disasters. He asked the officials from various districts to educate people on ways to deal with disasters.
“Disaster is as unexpected as a viral outbreak and anybody can become a hero by immediately responding to such a situation. More than the administration, people who experience the disaster must be courageous enough to react. Therefore, we must have resilient society rather than resilient cities. During a disaster, compassion plays a major role than money. Persons with money will be the real pirates during a disaster,” he said.