A single number for all emergencies such as police, fire and ambulance will soon become a reality in India, doing away with the present system of having multiple emergency & communication response systems.
Globally, most developed nations have moved to this model.
For instance,the US uses 911 for all emergencies, where a trained dispatcher routes the call to local emergency agencies.
The corresponding number for most European Union countries is 112, which can be dialed free of charge from any landline or / mobile phone.
Several countries also allow free calls to emergency number from disconnected fixed and mobile phone connections.
Indina Telecome sector regulator TRAI shares the view that existence of different numbers for various emergency response systems create confusion among users.
Now,I ndia uses manyl different numbers like as
100 (police),
101 (fire),
102 (Ambulance) and
108 (Emergency Disaster Management),
while a number of states have also notified various helpline numbers such as,
Woman in distress -181 (Delhi),
Missing children and women - 1094 (Delhi),
Crime against women -1096 (Delhi),
Anti-extortion -1097 (Delhi) and
Police Headquarter helpline -1090 (UP) among others.
Justifying the need to do away with the present system,TRAI in its communication to all mobile phone companies, in its consultation process, said it would be difficult to remember so many numbers during an emergency.
Another drawback in the present system is that sometimes in an emergency situation,multiple agencies are required to be contacted. It requires a citizen to dial contact numbers of various agencies & explain the same situation to each of them resulting in delay in getting help, whereas the situation warrants instant response. TRAI added.
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