The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Law & Order

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 29, 2006

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Law & Order

The city Police Control Room's phone lines are always jammed with calls from all over the State, writes Marri Ramu

Dial 100... and wait?

A lot has been said about improving response time of police. But the available communication system itself is flawed. People calling up the Hyderabad Police Control Room (HPCR) are asked to wait for their turn to lodge a complaint. For citizens, 100 is the number to reach police over phone from anywhere. The problem starts here. Irrespective of the location in the State, calls from all mobile phones for number 100 land at HPCR.

So, all its 12 lines are always engaged.

Men at HPCR are forced to alert the control rooms concerned since they cannot take chances with distress calls. In case of accidents and serious crimes, this is proving too costly since many lives are being lost due to delay in dissemination of information.

Other numbers too

Also, many people are unaware of HPCR's other telephone numbers like 27852333, 27852435, 27852436 or 23261166. If police control room in Hyderabad is flooded with unwanted calls, the 24 phone lines with its Cyberabad counterpart are grossly under utilised.

Calls made only from BSNL landline phones land here. It has four other numbers 27852818, 27852923, 55940941 and 55940983. These numbers too are little known to the common man.

What is the solution then? The Government and the mobile phone service providers should evolve a system wherein if a person calls number 100, it reaches its nearest police control room. Equally important is increasing the number of lines so that maximum calls are attended simultaneously.

Also, the other phone numbers of control rooms must be publicised.

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