State to procure 1,785 new ambulances at over ₹7,000 crore

The Maharashtra government has decided to improve its emergency medical services by procuring a fleet of 1,785 ambulances, including advanced life support and basic life support ambulances, motorbike ambulances, boat ambulances, and neonatal ambulances. This is part of the state government's Dial 108 project, which provides emergency medical services for free to citizens who call the government's toll-free helpline. The government has approved a sum of ₹7,595.65 crore for procuring and running the ambulances for ten years. The fleet will also include boat ambulances for reducing travel time and bike ambulances for areas where regular ambulances cannot reach.

MUMBAI: In a major move, the Maharashtra government has decided to improve its emergency medical services by procuring a fleet of 1,785 ambulances, which will include 255 advanced life support (ALS) ambulances, 1,274 basic life support (BLS) ambulances, 196 motorbike ambulances, 25 boat ambulances and 36 neonatal ambulances. The decision was taken in the state cabinet meeting on Friday.

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The fleet will be part of the Maharashtra Emergency Medical Services, commonly known as the Dial 108 project which was launched in March 2014. Under the project, citizens can get emergency medical services for free if they call the government’s toll-free helpline, 108. The state government approved a sum of ₹7,595.65 crore towards procuring the ambulances and running them for a period of ten years.

This is the first time that the state government is incorporating boat ambulances in its fleet. “They will help in reducing travel time if a patient has to be shifted to Mumbai from Alibag,” said a senior official from the state public health department. “The Alibag-Mumbai road trip takes around three and a half hours while a boat ambulance can reach the city in just 30 minutes.”

Similarly, bike ambulances will be launched in districts where regular ambulances cannot reach. The districts selected for the services are Amravati, Chandrapur, Dhule, Gadchiroli, Gondia, Jalgaon and Ahmednagar. “The service was first started on a pilot basis last year with 30 motorbike ambulances,” said another senior official from the health department. “Around 1.60 lakh patients have been served so far.”

The Dial 108 project has played a significant role in taking patients to hospital within the “golden hour”. According to statistics, 88.08 lakh people have availed of the scheme—of these, 15.31 lakh cases were pregnancies and 4.99 lakh cases related to accidents. Besides, a total number of 39,084 child births have been registered in these ambulances in the last nine years.

Of the existing fleet of 937 ambulances, 651 have travelled over 2.5 lakh km and thus need to be scrapped, following the government rule.

“Following the guidelines of the central government, one basic life support (BLS) ambulance will have to be deployed for a population of one lakh, and one advanced life support (ALS) ambulance will have to be deployed for a population of 5 lakh. Accordingly, 1,274 BLS and 255 ALS ambulances will be procured under Dial 108 project,” the official said.