BHUBANESWAR: The State government on Thursday directed departments concerned to integrate all emergency helpline numbers with the new emergency response support system (ERSS) by August-end to provide faster services to people in distress.
After the launch of a single unified emergency helpline number 'Dial 112' by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on March 19, 2021, the State emergency response center (SERC) has received nearly 21,000 calls out of which around 73 per cent pertains to police complaints and 27 per cent were fire related cases. In the first phase, emergency call numbers 100 (police) and 101 (fire) service have been integrated with the unified number 112.
Reviewing the progress achieved in the ERSS-Dial 112 at a high-level meeting here, Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra set the August deadline for integration of maximum number of services with the new system.
Emphasising on making ERSS more responsive and prompt, he asked the Home department to reduce the response time for quick service delivery at the point of distress. The department was further advised to take up extensive awareness activities about the functioning of the unified number so that people could make use of the system.
Apart from 100 and 101, helpline numbers like 102 (Janani Express), 104 (health help desk for Covid), 108 (ambulance), 181 (women helpline), and, 1098 (child helpline) and helpline service available for senior citizens and differently-abled persons need to be integrated with ERSS.
As more manpower, vehicles and other logistic support will be required after gradual integration of other helpline numbers and stabilisation of ERSS, Mahapatra asked the Home department to meet the manpower requirement through timely recruitment.
Additional Chief Secretary, Home department, Sanjeev Chopra said the SERC is now functioning with 60 call receivers, 12 computer-aided digitised systems, 151 vehicles and 400 fire service vehicles.
In the month of June, 8,807 cases were registered out of which around 93 per cent were related to police and 7 per cent to fire services. There were 1821 calls for emergency ambulance service which were promptly attended.