Noida cops among fastest to respond in May

Greater Noida: Noida police has come out near the top — second among UP districts — in terms of response time to distress calls that were made to the emergency helpline (Dial 112) in April and May.
According to data released by state authorities, police in Gautam Budh Nagar took eight minutes in April, and eight minutes and 10 seconds in May on an average to reach those who made distress calls. Rae Bareli police had the best response time in May, of seven minutes and 49 seconds. The lockdown may have helped, with roads seeing much less traffic than usual.
Rajesh S, DCP (traffic), told TOI the response time gets determined by monitoring the time taken by the police response vehicles (either bike or car) to reach the caller or the crime spot. He said, “Each PRV has a tab-like device called ‘Mobile Data Terminal’, in which the officials get duties from the Dial 112 headquarters and the moment they accept a job, the clock starts ticking and stops only after the official notifies that the PRV has reached.”
The DCP added that the system always assigns the nearest PRV to the caller and an official cannot false notify on the app to be quicker because of GPS-tracking of each vehicle.
In April, Noida police received around 53,405 emergency calls — of which over 70% were made for food and ration while the rest were for travel permissions, health emergencies and crime alerts. “We responded to these calls in 7 minutes and 12 seconds in urban areas and 8 minutes and 33 seconds in rural areas,” he said.
Even as the number of calls for food dropped in May after the migrant workers started going back to their native places, the officer said that it had little effect on the work of PRV officials. “In May, the number of calls dropped to 16,435. But, these calls took more time to address as many were made by people who were either waiting for their salaries or were troubled by their landlords over rent. Our teams handled them with utmost sensitivity,” he said.
In June, police claimed to have received around 450 to 550 calls that were related to cybercrime, robbery, scuffle, and other issues. The Noida PRV team received 28 appreciation letters in two months from the headquarters for swift action on complaints.
On May 18, the cops rescued a couple who were stuck inside a 23rd-floor flat that was on fire in Paras Tiera Society in Sector 137. The cops rescued the couple by jumping in from the neighbour’s balcony.
In another incident, cops reached to a caller’s home in less than seven minutes after he threatened to kill himself. They also helped him get Rs 4,000 from his employer who had withheld his two months’ salary in the first week of May.