Maharashtra Will Have Single Emergency Helpline Number 112, All Other 100, 101, 1091 To Go Away

Pune, October 21, 2020: Maharashtra like 16 other states in India will be rolling into ‘single emergency response number’ for citizens. The police helpline/emergency number ‘100’ will be history now. Soon the state will start a ‘112’ number for citizens in distress to contact police, fire brigade and women helpline.

The decision to integrate police, fire brigade and women helpline into ‘one emergency number’ like the United States is ongoing at the national level. The 112 helpline number was launched in February 2019– so far 20 states and union territories have adopted the single emergency helpline number. A year ago, on October 26, the Uttar Pradesh government had also closed the 100 number and adopted the ‘112’ helpline. Since then, even the Maharashtra Police was mulling on adopting this new helpline. In June, the helpline number ‘112’ was launched in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Nagpur and Pune.

One dialling-number in emergency

By 2020 end, the police administration is trying to set up ‘112’ helplines all over the state. For this, detailed training will be given to the concerned. The training will be imparted in phases from the police training centres in the state. With the help of a special system, within a few seconds, the person concerned will understand where the phone came from. The police control room, fire brigade, women’s helpline and child helpline will be informed about the call at the same time. This will enable to deploy all the systems at the spot if required, considering the seriousness of the incident.

Currently, there are three different helpline numbers functioning to connect with police (100), fire brigade (101) and women’s helpline (1091). After the Nirbhaya case in Delhi, there was a call for a single helpline at the central level. Since then, the decision to set up an Emergency Response Assistance System (ERSS) was taken as per the directions of the Supreme Court.

Advancing the technology-use

Geo-tagging is currently being done in all parts of the state. In addition, a training system has been set up on how to respond to a call from the Centralised Control Room and what to do when a call is received by the local control room. Only after fulfilling all these requirements, 100 numbers in the state will be closed. Vehicles belonging to the police are also being updated with the help of technology. As a result, in case of any other incident, all the systems can deal with it at the same time. For this, an officer of the rank of Additional Director General of Police has been appointed as the nodal officer of the state. A state-level committee of heads of other technical and training departments, including the state’s wireless department has been set up for this.

The initiative has been taken at the central level to provide all kinds of help to the victims at the same time. The administration is trying to start a 112 helpline in Maharashtra by December 31. The centralised control room will have at least 70 to 80 trained people at a time. Therefore, all kinds of help will be delivered to the citizens in the shortest possible time. After the launch of ‘112’, police helpline number 100 number will also be used for the next few days, stated S Jagannathan, additional director general of police and nodal officer of centralised helpline system.

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