Chennai: 1098 helpline goes dead for over 5 hours

Chennai: In the wake of counselors and psychologists stressing the need to arrest the number of suicides by students and emphasizing on the help line numbers, it is found that 1098, which is the first and only 24-hour, free emergency phone service for children, has failed to serve any purpose. Deccan Chronicle’s call to 1098 on Saturday went unanswered for over five hours.

Over 15 years after Childline India Foundation’s toll free 1098 helpline was launched in the city, the awareness still remains low and very few people who know about the service have abandoned it due to its poor maintenance.

Talking about the issues of 1098, child rights activist, M. Andrew Sesuraj said, “Initially, when people were using only landline phones, every district in South India had a call centre. So, the call would directly go to local telephone exchange that redirects the call to a helpline centre in the area. But, when mobile phones came in, the calls were being diverted to the service centre which led to call diversions, like Tiruchy’s call going to Madurai and Chennai’s call to Puducherry that ultimately led to proximity irrelevance.”

He further added that to address the issue, Thoraipakkam was selected as the only centre for all the calls and around 25 people were appointed for each shift. However, the complaints about the service do not seem to recede.

“1098 has been obsolete for over three years now. Mostly, after 8 pm, nobody picks the “24/7” helpline. Though numerous child rights activists have been spreading awareness in workshops at schools, the purpose is hampered,” said P. Krishnamurthy, a resident of Guindy.

However, when contacted an official from 1098 said, 6-11 pm are the peak hours when they would receive bulk of the calls and service issues still persist, which are currently being addressed.

Respite for the vulnerable students came in the form of 104 helpline service run by the Tamil Nadu State Health department. Statistics show that 1,200 people have been rescued by the counselors of 104 from committing suicide so far.
Sources said they usually attend around 20 calls per day and the numbers surge during examination time. However, they said the recent incidents have also shot up the number of calls due to the increased concern among the public.