Bengaluru: Dial 100, get help in 15 minutes

Bengaluru: Soon, police help in emergency situations will be made available in maximum time of 15 minutes. City Police Commissioner Praveen Sood is making efforts to infuse new blood in ‘Dial 100’ – the police emergency number – to ensure that when people in distress call the emergency helpline, their calls were received and taken action upon immediately without wasting any time.

The existing ‘Dial 100’ in the city cannot be considered a police emergency service, because many a time either the call doesn’t go through or there is no prompt response from the other side.

In the absence of a robust emergency service, police billboards across the city display contact numbers of the commissioner and other senior police officers, which are difficult to remember in desperate situations.

“Dial 100 is easy to remember and can be used in such situations. The proposed slogan for the launch of the improved ‘Dial 100’ in Bengaluru will be – ‘15 seconds, 15 minutes’. The police control room is being geared up to pick up emergency calls in maximum 15 seconds and the total time spent between receiving the call and the Hoysala (police patrol vehicle) reaching the spot should not be more than 15 minutes,” explained Mr Sood.

As of now, the control room has 15 dedicated phone lines for ‘Dial 100’ and these are being expanded to 100 lines, so that anybody in need is able to access and avail of the police emergency service. “At present, we have 15 police personnel for ‘Dial 100’ in the control room. With 100 lines, we will increase the number of personnel to 350 and we will outsource staff from the private sector,” he said.

The Commissioner said that with the upgradation, there will be no excuse for laxity in response time. “The first responder (who will receive the call) will know the nature of the call and act accordingly. If it is a distress call, he will alert the dispatcher, who would in turn with the help of the GPS find out the Hoysala, which is nearest to the caller and send it. We have 227 Hoysalas in the city and there should be no reason for delay beyond 15 minutes,” said Mr Sood.

Once the 100 lines are open with required staff and infrastructure, the personnel will also call back if there is a missed call to provide help. “We would later like to call for a third party audit for a fair audit of the emergency service. The idea is to make help available to people. But then callers should also refrain from misusing the helpline. We get a lot of bogus calls on ‘Dial 100’, and answering them is a sheer waste of time and manpower,” he said.

With the Dial 100 software on his desktop, the police chief monitors in real time the efficacy of the police personnel. “Soon the DCPs will be tasked with the job,” he said.