Steps taken to streamline emergency helpline number 100, police tells HC

New Delhi, Aug 29 (IANS) The Delhi Police on Monday told the Delhi High Court that they have taken several steps to streamline the system for improving the emergency helpline number 100.

Police told a division bench of Chief Justice G. Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal that to tackle the problem of calls queuing up at the telecom service provider, "the matter regarding priority routing of emergency calls has been taken up with authorities concerned".

The police response came after the bench asked them what action they are taking in this regard.

Police also expressed regret before the court over the "inconvenience" caused to Justice Vipin Sanghi, whose calls to the emergency helpline number 100 went unanswered.

"The inconvenience caused to Justice Vipin Sanghi was inadvertent and due to reasons beyond control and it is assured that all sincere steps are being taken to ensure that such incidents do not recur in future," it told the bench.

The present police assistance 100 system, the central police control room (CPCR) of Delhi police, was installed in 2008 and it attends to about 24,000 calls per day, it said.

"Heavy traffic on TSP (telecom service provider) leads to congestion in their system as a result of which few calls do not reach Delhi Police exchange in CPCR and get abandoned," the Delhi Police said.

This creates the impression to the distress caller as if the call has not been attended by the police assistance call taker, whereas actually the call has not landed at CPCR, they clarified.

Secondly, during peak hours, as the number of call increases sharply, calls are put on hold and they remain in queue till they are taken up by call taker or disconnected by the caller themselves.

Keeping in view the system is old, the Home Ministry said preventive maintenance cycle of the technical infrastructure has been made more stringent and frequent. It also said feedback staff has been deputed round the clock in CPCR to make calls to telephone number from which calls made to CPCR are found to be abandoned.

The bench has now fixed the matter for order September 24.

Justice Sanghi, in a letter to Chief Justice Rohini, had narrated his "poor personal experience" of calling up the helpline on April 29 when he was on way to Vasant Kunj area of south Delhi to attend a wedding reception and was stuck in a traffic jam for about 40 minutes.