PremiumA cable-car crisis this week threw a spotlight on India’s rapid response infirmities. Since bulk data can be analysed and tech enablers exist, it’s time for a crack-action service we can rely on
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It was a harrowing 45 hours for over 40 people trapped mid-air in cable cars before the Indian Air Force mounted a rescue this week in Jharkhand’s Deoghar. The physical strain of that wait is thought to have taken a toll in three unfortunate lives lost in the bail-out. A senior executive of the company that operates the ropeway called it a “unique accident", though one only had to look at our shaky record of cable safety to call that descriptor out. How ‘freak’ a mishap is depends on whether our statistics down the years say it’s a bulge-bracket risk or a statistical rarity. In casual talk, it is a relative word. Across much of the world, for example, deaths down manholes are so rare, they set alarms off. Indian fatalities on this account, however, have not just been relatively frequent, they can be sliced into two groups: on-job lives lost to an old hazard for sanitation workers and unaware drops into toxic cavities whose covers went missing. Till two decades ago, reports of children stuck down man-made holes were routine. More recently, a spate of urban floods brought sad speculation of washaway cases after walking paths dried up to reveal gaping dangers. And then, there are other hazards around us.
While we lack accurate data on the perils we face just going about our lives—or on holidays, especially if they involve adventure sports—the country’s size is such that bulky numbers must exist to work out estimates of what all is how likely to befall people where. Of all life-threatening events, one chunk would surely be preventable and another mitigable. A World Bank count released last year said India had 53 road accidents every hour and one death every four minutes. Response time matters. A report by Soondra Foundation pegs deaths from causes where rapid response could reduce mortality at 43% of our total. This proportion is so high that it provokes a question. If the telecom revolution that linked most of us can ensure food delivery within half an hour, why not a speed dial rescue? With data-guided squads kept trained and ready for various crisis situations (fire being just one among many), all it should take, like America’s 911 emergency service, is a call for help over the airwaves.
The ubiquity of mobile network coverage has led to some unlikely and daring saves, famously of mountaineers caught in an Everest blizzard. Networks can pinpoint device locations in urban spaces far more identifiably. Indeed, all the elements exist that are needed for a hair-trigger-alert system that can catch and process information quickly to scramble forces for SOS operations. What we have in its place today is an apology of an emergency helpline. The fact that most people can hardly recall its contact number, 112, is a sign of how little store is laid by it. On paper, it is open to everyone and even offers access to the speech or hearing impaired. In reality, it’s just a glorified switchboard for reaching the police, fire department or women and child support services, which one can call directly too. It doesn’t help that commando-level skills, as needed in some instances, cannot be deployed on a retrieval mission without a maze of high-level okays. Turf overlaps and confusion can worsen delays. What we need is a good tech-enabled system with suitable hoax filters, well-defined protocols for action and frontline staff that’s empowered to respond instantly to distress. The country has been duly proud of its elaborate efforts to extract citizens stuck abroad. Rescues back home, however, still need us to get our act together.