A new animation shared on Twitter by Bengaluru City police goes thus:
“Hey”
“Hey. What’s up?”
“I need to get my police verification done. Do you know which police station should I go to and whom to contact there?”
“I have no clue, but you can Dial 100 to find out.”
“I thought we should dial 100 only for emergencies??”
“Nope. The newly launched Namma 100 is a ‘point of contact’ for anything and everything related to Bengaluru police.”
“I didn’t know, will call 100 and find out. Thank you”
In the month of April, in an interview with Citizen Matters, Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Praveen Sood had said that one of his areas of concern as police chief of the city was to cut down the time gap between calling and receiving when people dial 100.
Often, when citizens dialled 100 seeking police help, the calls used to go unattended or the phone lines were busy. This is because the number of police control room lines to cater to a population of one crore was just 15. Speaking elaborately about his plan to upgrade the Bengaluru city police control room, the police chief had said the main challenge before him was to ensure that the dial 100 calls are picked in less than 15 seconds. He said the Bengaluru city police had received Rs 20 crore from the State government to upgrade the control room and the new control room system with several new features would be made available to public within two months.
On June 10th, a few days after two months, the Chief Minister of Karnataka launched Namma 100 – the new version of Dial 100. On the previous day of the launch the police chief in a series of tweets had announced that Namma-100 was fully operational. “V promised 2 pick up every call within 15 sec but doing it now within 6 sec,” he tweeted.
Our Namma-100 fully operational. V promised 2 pick up every call within 15 sec but doing it now within 6 sec. pic.twitter.com/FLRd4i1YMV
— CP Bengaluru ಪೊಲೀಸ್ ಆಯುಕ್ತ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು (@CPBlr) June 8, 2017
With the launch of upgraded police control room, Dial 100 has been now renamed as Namma-100.
According to the information shared by city police commissioner with the media, the upgraded emergency service response control room has following features: 24X7 state-of-the-art command centre, 90 lines, 100+ trained communication officers, call response in 15 seconds, Hoysala intervention in 15 minutes, call back on every missed call and victim location tracking with GPS.
On June 14th evening when I called 100 just to check how fast the emergency call is picked, it was received in three seconds. Soon, a voice directed me to press 1 to connect to the police control room. When I dialled 1, within a second the call was connected to the control room where a voice asked me what help do I need.
Though the person in the control room refused to divulge much of information about how the centre works (after knowing that I am a journalist), he did say that he has been trained on how to respond to emergency calls. So when a person in distress calls 100, the control room is expected to pass on the information to the nearest police and ensure that Hoysala vehicle reaches the spot within 15 minutes.
When I asked how many calls does a single line receive in a day after the launch of upgraded service, he said he receives around 50-60 calls of which half the calls are prank calls.
The police commissioner has also said that soon three service options will be available when people dial 100 – one for police, two for traffic and three for enquiry and appointments. The last two services are yet to be introduced. Also, the police chief has announced of integrating Namma-100 with a whole lot of other emergency services like Vanitha Sahaya Vani (women), Makkala Sahaya Vani (children) and Hiriyara Sahaya Vani (senior citizens), so that when the person in distress dials, he/she will be connected to any of the above services, if the need be.
The police commissioner has said that the control has been receiving on an average 3,000 calls a day, after the launch of Namma-100.