BENGALURU: The Karnataka Health Department has decided to discontinue 340 ambulances running under the ‘108’ ambulance service in the state, replacing them with new ones due to their poor condition.
It has been decided that the ambulances be replaced as part of a regular procedure, with all ambulances which cover a distance of 4 lakh kilometres to be replaced in four years’ time.
Dr R Narayan, Deputy Director (EMRI-108), said the ambulances were last replaced in 2015-16 and were almost seven years old. Hence, the state decided to replace them with new ones. The said 340 ambulances have been decommissioned and can be utilised for other tasks, while those in extremely bad shape will be scrapped.
He, however, ensured that the ambulance services across the state will not be affected during this time. Out of the 340 rejected ambulances, there are a few that will be used for the time being, following repairs.
GVK-EMRI has been the service provider for running the ‘108’ ambulance service in Karnataka for the last 14 years. Several complaints were registered in the past regarding poor service, late response time and even technical glitches in the server.
Hence, the state government decided to change the service providers for ‘108’ ambulances and floated tenders. Since the procurement process for new ambulances has already started, officials are expecting to start running the new ambulances in 3-4 months.
The health department is also aiming to provide better quality ambulances to the state, with the new service providers. They also said that previously, the rules and quality checks for ambulances were not very strict. Now, the department has planned to lay out guidelines to be strictly followed by companies to ensure that no compromises are made in providing quality service.