Distress Calls: Odisha Govt To Press More Vehicles For Emergency Services

Bhubaneswar: With the present fleet of vehicles proving inadequate to provide emergency services to the people, the state government has decided to hire more such vehicles.

The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Secretary SC Mahapatra on Friday. Since the emergency call numbers 100 to contact police and 101 for fire services have been integrated with the Emergency Response Support System (ERSS) number 112, he directed to make the new system fully equipped in terms of technology, manpower and real-time location of the vehicles.

The emergency response centre now has 124 call-takers and 551 vehicles to provide the services, TNIE quoted Additional Chief Secretary of Home department Sanjeev Chopra as saying. The government had set a target to integrate emergency services of different departments to the unified call number 112 by August-end, he added.

The centre registered total 8,708 calls received from people in distress in August. Of those, 7,957 were related to police and 585 for fire services. It also forwarded 1,915 calls to ambulance services.