Bhubaneswar cops improve distress response

BHUBANESWAR: The commissionerate police clocked an average response time (ART) of 16 minutes to reach distress callers in the capital city in 2022, against the national average time of 21 minutes, under 112 or emergency response support system (ERSS).
According to the data, the city police improved their ART of reaching the distress callers from 19.13 minutes in January to 15.58 minutes in December last year. The ART of an emergency response vehicles arrival near the callers was 20 minutes in May. The response time hovered between 15 and 19 minutes in other months.
“When we saw our response time of reaching the callers at 19 minutes, we laid stress on minimising the time gap in the following months. In October, November and December, our ART of reaching a distress caller was 15 minutes. It is better than the national average of 21.27 minutes,” deputy commissioner of police Prateek Singh said.
The data further showed that the average response time of assigning or sending a police vehicle to crime spot after receiving a distress call was only one minute last year, against the national average time of two minutes. According to the procedure, the ERSS command centre in Bhubaneswar receives distress calls from across the state and then forwards the calls to the police control rooms concerned in districts for immediate despatch of police vehicles to the locations of the callers.
In January, it took 14 minutes for the police control room here to assign a police vehicle after receiving distress calls from the ERSS command centre. “We ensured to curtail the response time through proper coordination and monitoring. In December, the average response time came down to only one minute as against the national average response time of two minutes,” the DCP said.
Police sources said the ART of reaching the callers depends on the traffic and availability of police vans at the nearest locations of the callers. The city police currently has only 36 police control rooms (PCR) vans for multiple purposes routine patrolling, raids and traffic duty. The commissionerate police have sent a proposal to the government, seeking 15 more PCR vehicles.
In 2022, the Bhubaneswar police control room received 52,694 distress calls routed through the ERSS command centre. Of them, at least 32,971 calls (62%) fell in the category of threat (group clashes, street fights and altercations), 4,913 calls were of accident related (9%) and 3,326 calls (6%) involved crime against women (mostly eve-teasing).