Noida police clock lowest Dial 112 response for eight months in row

The district has bagged the top spot in Uttar Pradesh since July 2021, and has retained its ranking among the 75 districts for eight months in a row now

At 6.32 minutes, the Gautam Budh Nagar police was the fastest to respond to distress calls made on the 112 helpline. revealed data available with the UP Police.

Officials said the response time is calculated by taking into consideration the average duration of urban and rural response time. (Sunil Ghosh /HT)

The district bagged the top spot in Uttar Pradesh in July 2021 and since then it has retained the spot among the 75 districts, the data showed.

Earlier, the lowest response time recorded by the Gautam Budh Nagar police was 6.39 minutes, in November 2021. The timing improved to 6.32 minutes in February 2022, the data showed.

Officials said the response time is calculated by taking into consideration the average duration of urban and rural response time. For Gautam Budh Nagar, the urban response time was 5.52 minutes in February, while the rural response time was 6.54 minutes.

“Rural terrain always poses a challenge for the police which is why that response time is usually longer when compared to urban areas. However, we are working to reduce this timing as well,” said inspector Satyaveer Singh, the Gautam Budh Nagar district in-charge of Dial 112.

Singh added that the Dial 112 service gets about 400 to 450 calls on a daily basis. “Since the district went to assembly elections in the month of February, at least 30% of the total calls were poll related. A majority of these calls report domestic violence, among other issues,” he said.

Currently, Gautam Budh Nagar district has 65 four-wheeler and 46 two-wheeler police response vehicles (PRVs), which handle emergency calls made on Dial 112, the officials said.

“All distress calls made on Dial 112 are re-routed to the local PRVs from the Lucknow headquarters and the time duration is calculated from the moment a PRV responds to the situation till it reaches the incident spot, with both times being fed on mobile data terminals,” said Singh.

Gautam Budh Nagar police commissioner Alok Singh said, “I commend the commitment, dedication and zeal of our personnel and the way they respond to distress calls.”

He said the PRV personnel are trained on a regular basis and a monitoring system is also in place to analyse their work.

Instances when the Dial 112 team helps avoid loss of life or mishap are awarded as the ‘PRV of the day’ by the Uttar Pradesh Police. In February, Gautam Budh Nagar was awarded the title six times.

“On February 6, a distress call was received on Dial 112 when a local resident saw a three-year-old girl crying beside a man who was appeared drunk. After reaching the spot, police made an announcement in the area and she was soon handed over to her family members,” said Satyaveer Singh.

In another instance, on February 17, a car theft was avoided under the jurisdiction of the Sector 58 police station. “As soon as information was received, police reached the spot and saw that the accused were driving away with the car. On being chased by the PRV, the accused stopped and fled, leaving the car behind. The car was handed over to its owner,” he said.