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UP112 assisted over 63k people during 3 days of Diwali
Over three days during the festivals, UP112 in Uttar Pradesh provided immediate help to 63,230 people and families. The call-taking capability of UP112 will be increased with the hiring of 825 new call takers. Despite strike action by call takers, UP112 is still operational and efforts are being made to resolve the issue. The agency managing the outsourced call takers recently changed and offered increased salaries to call takers. The protesting workers are demanding a basic salary of ₹18,000.
As many 63,230 people and families were provided immediate help by Police Response Vehicles (PRV) linked to UP112 (UP Police Emergency Integrated Response Centre) in three days from November 11 to 13 during the festivals, said UP 112 additional director general (ADG), Neera Rawat, on Tuesday.
While sharing information with media persons, she said earlier 673 call takers were present and now 825 call takers will be hired by the new agency managing outsourced call takers for the response centre. She said the call-taking capability of UP112 will be further increased with the increase in the number of call takers.
The ADG said that the calls related to burns cases, incidents as a result of bursting crackers and fire incidents are often made during Diwali, and UP112 provided help at every corner of the state. She said the call-taking and call-dispersing technique has been made more advanced following which call-taking capacity could be increased from 50,000 to 1.30 lakh due to which call dropping has been decreased and more calls could be attended at a time.
On the protesting call takers of UP112, she said UP112 is operational normally and helping people across the state despite so many call takers going on strike suddenly for the last one week. She said efforts were being made to resolve the issue.
The ADG explained that the agency managing the outsourced call takers was changed from November 2 after which some call takers demanded to increase the amount to a certain level. She said the present agency, after taking over, first gave the offer letter to previously working 673 outsourced call takers.
She said the agency gave the offer with the increased salary grade of skilled worker of ₹12,667 of basic salary while earlier, they were given the salary grade of semi-skilled worker. She said 158 out of 673 previously working call takers rejoined the job while the agency arranged new call takers for the remaining vacant posts.
“The agency has assured that they will still approach the protesting call takers and explain to them about their new increased salary grade of skilled worker, and they could still join duties,” she emphasised.
The protesting workers are demanding a basic salary of ₹18,000.
