Expect swift action as Maharashtra police to have own emergency response system

The system will see all calls land at primary contact centres in Navi Mumbai, which will handle about 70% of the total number of calls.

The state police will soon have its own Maharashtra emergency response system (MERS), which will integrate calls from any of the 10 commissionerates and 35 district police offices in the state to control rooms that initiate appropriate action based on the caller’s location.

A secondary contact centre at Nagpur will handle the remaining 30% of calls. (HT File/Representational Image)

The system will see all calls land at primary contact centres in Navi Mumbai, which will handle about 70% of the total number of calls.

A secondary contact centre at Nagpur will handle the remaining 30% of calls, said Maharashtra police sources. Both the centres will be manned by 50-member teams.

These primary contact centres will then dispatch the call district control rooms to act according to the emergency requirements.

Each of these centres will be equipped to handle messages through emails, SMS and even chat applications, said sources.

The project will be completed in two phases. The first phase will see the integration of Thane, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Chandrapur, Bhandara, Gondia, Wardha, Amravati, Satara, Sangli, Solapur, Kolhapur, Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri and Raigad districts followed by state-wide implementation. Mumbai will be the last city to be integrated because it has a state-of-the-art control room set up at its commissionerate, said police sources.

“Contact centre call takers will be the first point of contact to receive calls, gather information and forward the captured details to the respective field locations or control rooms and dispatch units depending on the location of the caller. The people, who take the call will be multi-lingual to ensure none of the calls are abandoned,” said a senior police office.

Dispatchers at the district control rooms will receive the information and relevant caller details, and they will locate the nearest emergency response vehicles, shortest route and nearest police station to the incident site and take further action in coordination with police emergency vehicles.

“We had placed a requirement of 3,000 emergency response vehicles to cover the entire state, and the first set of vehicles has arrived,” said a senior IPS officer.

Each of the emergency response vehicles deployed on field will be equipped with mobile data terminals (MDTs), which will enable locating the caller’s location on GIS map and take further action.

“The vehicles will be deployed at different parts of the state. The control room will locate the closest vehicle to the spot of complaint through GPS and then send help accordingly. It will also have MDTs which will help them send live pictures of the spot to the control room,” said the officer.

“Intially we are keeping it for all calls to police across Maharashtra, but we soon plan to have a common control room for police, fire and medical emergency,” said a senior officer from aharashtra police.

Police personnel at your service

Maharashtra, which is the third largest state in India, has 10 commissionerates and 35 district police units.

How much force does the state have?

Indian police service officers: 302

Superintendents of police: 282

Deputy superintendents of police: 523

Inspectors: 3,522

Assistant police inspectors: 3,123

Sub inspectors: 6,230

Policemen: 1,80,550

How the system will function

Primary Control Room

Calls will be received at the primary contact centre or police control room at Navi Mumbai, and the secondary contact centre at Nagpur

The calls will then be dispatched accordingly, to district control rooms

District controls rooms have been divided into four categories

Category A+: It will consist of 4 commissionerates and 15 police officers, who will handle calls during peak hours

Category A: In the next 12 commissionerates, eight police officers will handle calls during peak hours

Category B: In 21 other districts, five police officers will handle calls during peak hours

Category C: In the remaining 13 districts, three police officers will handle the calls

District control rooms will inform the respective police stations or emergency response vehicles to act according to the situation.