By Umanand Jaiswal
Work on the proposed helpline was initiated by the Assam State Disaster Management Authority and the revenue and disaster management department on July 14 and a launch has been tentatively scheduled for November 14.
Those in the know said the project is aimed at integrating all helplines such as 100 for police, 101 for fire service, 108 for medical response, 1070 for disaster management control room into one number to cater to all emergency situations.
“In times of crisis it is difficult for a person in distress to remember the different numbers. Therefore, Dispur has decided to have one-point helpline for the whole of Assam. Dispur has given its nod to the project given its overall benefits,” one of them said.
The detailed project report, prepared by the P.M. Dastidar-headed core committee constituted by the disaster management department principal secretary Vinod Kumar Pipersenia, was submitted to chief secretary N.K. Das on September 4.
The committee, which has representatives from BSNL, AMTRON, Assam Police’s communication wing, Assam Fire Service Organisation and GVK Emergency Management & Research Institute (EMRI) that runs the 108 (Mritunjoy) service, had met four times to discuss issues related to the launch of the service and its financial implications.
The report suggests that the GVK EMRI will be the nodal agency to run the one-point emergency helpline service as it has the necessary infrastructure, the expertise, not to mention the popularity of its existing 108 number among the masses.
“Ours would have been the first state to launch the service in India but we were beaten by Uttarakhand, which launched the service on October 12. But the good thing is that ours would be more elaborate and systematic,” the source said.
Unlike the Uttarakhand model, the source claimed, the Assam model would see all the agencies involved in disaster/emergency management have dedicated telephone numbers to react instantly to calls made from the 108 number. “In Uttarakhand, one can make a call to 108 but the calls made by the latter to the necessary organisations may not necessarily get through easily or responded to. In our case, they will immediately know that it is an emergency since it will be routed through 108,” he said.
The November launch is, however, subject to the connectivity issue being resolved by BSNL. As many as 683 numbers of police stations, outposts, fire service, inland waterways, among others, will be connected to the 108 helpline.
Though no immediate manpower will be required to run the service by GVK EMRI, a growing number of calls could see an annual call expenditure of Rs 12 lakh to Rs 14 lakh which will have to be borne by the disaster management department.
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