Odisha operationalises unified emergency response system

In a step towards citizen-centric governance, the Odisha government has fully operationalised the unified call number (112) for emergency response support system (ERSS) in the State and set a target to integrate emergency services of different departments by end of August.

Reviewing the functioning of the system, Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra directed to make ERSS more responsive and prompt and to reduce the response time between the receipt of a call and reaching of the vehicle at the service delivery point.

In the first stage, the emergency call numbers 100 and 101 of the police and fire service have been integrated with the unified number 112.

Further, Mahapatra gave directions to fully integrate various emergency services being provided by different departments for which varied help desk numbers were rolled out at different points of time.

Discussions in the meeting show that apart from 100 and 101, there are other numbers like 102 (Janani Express), 104 (health help desk for covid), 108 (emergency ambulance), 181 (women helpline), and, 1098 (child helpline). Besides this, helpline service is also available for senior citizens and differently-abled persons.

The Chief Secretary has asked to integrate all these services with unified ERRS in phases for making it easy and convenient for the citizens.

A target was set to integrate a maximum number of services with the new system by end of August.

Mahapatra also directed to engage more manpower and vehicles for immediate response. The parallel helplines would gradually be closed with full functioning and stabilisation of the new ERRS.

Additional Chief Secretary Home, Sanjeev Chopra informed, "The State emergency response center (SERC) is now functioning round the clock with 60 call takers, 12 computers aided digitised systems, 151 vehicles and 400 fire service vehicles. During the period from 19 March 2021 to May 2021, a total number of 20,811 cases were registered in the SERC through calls out of which around 73 percent related to police and 27 percent were fire events." "Apart from that, around 5415 actionable calls regarding ambulance service were also received and acted upon during the period. In the month of June 8807 cases were registered out of which around 93 percent related to police and 7 percent related to fire services. During the month, 1821 calls for emergency ambulance service were received and attended," he added.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had launched the Dial-112 emergency response support system on March 19, 2021.

( With inputs from ANI )