Emergency number 112 starts ringing, police approach BSNL

The number 112 is being introduced in India on the pattern of some western countries, which have only one number for all emergency services. In the US, 911 is an all-in-one emergency service.

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“The operator, who will receive the call on 112, will divert it to the concerned departments. There will be no need to dial 101 for fire services, 102 or 108 for health services,” said a police officer. (Representational Image)

CHANDIGARH POLICE has begun the process of attending calls made to 112 (a common number for all kinds of emergency service) and approached BSNL to provide more Primary Rate Interface (PRI), which can divert the calls to handlers of emergency services. A meeting between BSNL officials and Chandigarh Police took place at the BSNL office in Sector 17 on Monday. The number 112 is part of the Centre’s nationwide emergency response system (NERS) project.

A police officer, attached to the project, said, “We have deployed two operators in the police control room to deal with calls made to 112, which will be attended by the operators through additional PRI connections. Once the plan is implemented properly, we will need at least 10 more operators to deal with the emergency calls made to 112. At present, we are receiving only a few calls on 112. The calls will increase once people become aware about the common emergency helpline.”

BSNL Deputy General Manager Jetinder Mahajan said, “A team of two inspectors of Chandigarh Police visited us. We have assured them to provide additional PRI connections shortly. 112 will be a common emergency number and calls received on this will be diverted to the concerned wings after being filtered. It will take time to implement it thoroughly. In Punjab, state police have already started working on it and 112 is active in some districts, including Patiala.”

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“The need to introduce the mechanism to attend calls on 112 arose when reports were received from neighbouring states, including Punjab and Haryana, that people in Chandigarh dial 112 but it connects with Punjab Police and Haryana Police,” said a source.

Home Secretary Anurag Agarwal said, “We have decided to implement the common emergency number (112) as soon as possible in Chandigarh. Recently, we had a meeting of all stakeholders, including DGP Tajender Singh Luthra, SP Eish Singhal and officials of the fire department, health services and disaster management. All calls made to 112 will land at the police control room before being and forwarded to the concerned departments.”