HYDERABAD: The 108 emergency services call centre run by GVK-EMRI, even after 12 years of its launch, is flooded with prank calls. And come summer, the number of such calls have only gone up manifold. The reason: Answering a call anticipating an emergency request to attend an accident victim, on many occasions, result in mere giggles from the other end. With the holiday season on, officials with the GVK-EMRI call centre say the calls just increase. In fact, the management has started to categorise these calls as ‘Child call’ to rate the nature of call they receive. Other categories include ‘Silent call’, ‘Emergency’, ‘Prank call’, etc.
In a day, the ‘108’ call centre receives about 12,600 calls. Based on them, the staff attend around 1,453 emergency situations. Apart from requesting seeking help to attend medical emergencies, the emergency number receives calls from children, calls just for ‘fun’, some dial the number and hang up as soon as call centre executive picks up.
Chief Operating officer of GVK-EMRI ‘108’ affirmed that such calls from children increases during summers-when it is holiday season. Not just from children, even after 12-years of launch of the ambulance service, the call centre is flooded with ‘child calls’ ‘prank calls’. People still dial the number to ‘test’ if there will be any response, and to know if a particular service such a shoulder surgery is performed at a private hospital. Many have been using the dial 108 as an alternate for dial 100 too.
Brahmananda Rao, said that at times, in cases of law and order problems too, people dial ‘108’. “We divert these calls to ‘dial 100’. “Apart from medical emergencies, whoever is in need of medical help can contact us. For instance, if someone is suffering from a health problem which is non-emergency and want to know where can they avail the treatment, we inform them the hospitals they can approach,” said Brahmananda Rao.