By IANS,
Hyderabad : Police in Andhra Pradesh will now be able to quickly reach trouble spots anywhere in the state with the extension of the ‘Dial 100’ facility that was hitherto available only in the cities.
With the ‘108’ ambulance service proving a huge hit in the state over the last few years, the police have also set up a centralized call centre for ‘Dial 100’.
Just like an ambulance reaching within minutes of ‘108’ being called, the police will now be able to rush to the trouble spots across the state.
Like ‘108’, a public-private initiative, the ‘Dial 100’ will make use of the call centre facility at Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI) at Kompally on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
As a gift to people on Telugu New Year ‘Ugadi’, Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy launched the facility on Thursday.
The people from anywhere in the state can now dial 100, a toll free number, from either their mobile or land-line phones for police assistance. The call would be received at the call centre at Kompalli, where the specially-trained police personnel will find the location of the caller using Geographic Information System (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) system. They will immediately alert the control room of the concerned district, which in turn would flash the message to police patrolling team or police station nearest to the scene.
Police officials claim that the entire process will take less than a minute and the conversation will be recorded. The local police after approaching the victim, would issue an acknowledgment for the complaint and will also inform the control room of the action taken.
The concerned police station would subsequently issue First Information Report (FIR).
The police came out with the ambitious plan as the existing facility was available only in cities and the people were complaining about the delay in getting police assistance and lack of any accountability. In the rest of the state, the people were expected to remember telephone numbers of the concerned police stations to call in times of distress.
The centralized call centre will not only minimize the response time but would also fix accountability on the police personnel with regard to time they took in reaching the scene of offence. This is also expected to make things easier for the people to get FIR.