112, India’s one and all Emergency number is to be operational from January 1, 2017. This emergency number will avail the citizens of India with the emergency service or police, fire force or ambulance.

According to a senior official, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has already approved the provision of the single emergency number for various services which is required in the matter of urgency like police, fire force, ambulance etc.  This has given a momentum for the government for the commencement of the single emergency service from January 1. 112 is hoped to be India’s answer to America’s 911, according to the officials.

Indian government pals to do away with all other emergency numbers once this single emergency number will become operational, though the speed of the removal of others will depend upon the awareness of the emergency number in the regions.  For now Indian has several ones of the emergency numbers to rendering an array of services like police (100), fire brigade (101), ambulance (102) and Emergency Disaster Management (108).

As per the government’s plans, the Emergency Service Number 112 will accessible through SIMs and landlines, even those whose outgoing calls have stopped or temporarily suspended. The person in emergency or need will only have to call 112 and they will be directed to the concerned departments for the immediate help. Speaking to media about the emergency service, one of the officials stated that the telecom operators will direct all the emergency calls to 112 once the service commences. And hence, the network between various departments is being worked out. The telecom has also made the arrangements to detect the location of the caller during the emergency situations. The telecom system will identify the location and pin point it with the help of nearest help center or telecom tower.

Apart from this, Indian telecom also plans to avail the panic button service to the users. The panic button will be a single button which when pressed during the emergency situations will sent SMS alert or calls to the multiple numbers, alerting them of the situation. The government will make both panic button and in-built GPS navigation system mandatory for all phones a year later with effect from January 1, 2018.

Initially, the calls of the emergency service will be handled by the call centers which will render the service in three languages – Hindi, English and the regional language. The telecoms have made arrangement to recruit the additional staff later on, to fulfill the capacity to handle the emergency calls.

The post India’s emergency service number 112 to commence from Jan 1 appeared first on Golkonda News.