Odisha introduces ERSS with unified call “112” for better citizen centric governance
Bhubaneswar, Jul 15 : The Emergency Response Support Support System (ERSS) has been operationalized in Odisha with unified call No 112 to provide better citizen-centric governance to the people of the state.
Reviewing the functioning of the system, Odisha Chief Secretary S C Mahapatra directed officials to make ERSS more responsive and prompt. He emphasized reducing the response time between the receipt of a call and reaching the vehicle at the service delivery point.
In the first stage, the emergency call numbers 100 and 101 of police and fire service have been integrated with the unified number 112.
The Chief Secretary directed the home department to launch extensive awareness activities about the functioning of the unified number so that people could make use of the system.
He directed to fully integrate various emergency services being provided by different departments for which varied help desk numbers were rolled out at different points of time.
Apart from 100 and 101, there are different other numbers like 102 (Janani Express), 104 (health help desk for covid), 108 (emergency ambulance), 181 ( women helpline), and, 1098 (child helpline). Help line service is also available for senior citizens and differently-abled persons.
Mr Mahapatra directed to integrate all these services with unified ERRS in phases for making it easy and convenient for the citizens.
Target was set to integrate a maximum number of services with the new system by the end of August. The Chief Secretary was also directed to engage
more manpower and vehicles for immediate response. The parallel helplines would gradually be closed with full functioning and stabilization of the new ERRS.
Additional Chief Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said, “The State emergency response centre (SERC) is now functioning round the clock with 60 call takers, 12 computer-aided digitized systems, 151 vehicles and 400 fire service vehicles.
During the period from March 19 2021 to May 2021, a total number of 20,811 cases were registered in the SERC through calls out of which around 73 per cent related to police and 27 per cent were fire events.
Apart from that around 5415 actionable calls regarding ambulance service were also received and acted upon during the period.
In June 8807 cases were registered out of which around 93 per cent related to police and 7 per cent related to fire services. During the month 1821 calls for emergency ambulance service were received and attended to.
