Bhubaneswar: Odisha government rolled out 92 additional ‘108’ ambulances on Saturday.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik flagged off 24 ambulances under the ‘108’ fleet in the first phase today. The remaining will be rolled out in a phased manner across the state, an official statement said.
“The initiative aims at improving the performance of emergency ambulance service, particularly in tribal districts to meet the increasing demand of the service. The state government has made a budget provision of Rs 90 crore for these additional ambulances”, it added.
The government, through exclusive state budget funding, has also provided funds for upgradation of 28 Basic Life Support (BLS) ambulances to Advanced Life Support (ALS) ambulances to strengthen the existing ambulance fleet.
Over 31 lakh people have been benefited for the ambulance service, which was launched to reduce both Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and Mortal Mortality Ratio (MMR) in the state.
The government had launched ‘108’ Emergency Medical Ambulance Service on March 5, 2013. Currently, there are 420 ambulances (364 BLS and 56 ALS) covering all 30 districts providing emergency medical service for free of cost.
In addition to the ‘108’ ambulance service, the government launched a fleet of 500 ambulances under ‘102’ ambulance service for transportation of pregnant mothers and ailing infants.