Wednesday, April 8, 2015

India to soon have an emergency number

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released recommendations on implementation of a single emergency number across the country. 

According to the recommendations on implementation of 'Single number based Integrated Emergency Communication & Response System (IECRS), the number '112' is to be chosen as a single emergency number for India. 

Calls made to '112' from a landline or mobile phone will be routed to a Public Safety Answering Point(PSAP) which would be similar to a call centre. The number of such PSAPs in a state or union territory will be decided by their respective governments provided that there's at least a single such centre in each state/UT. 

The Trai has also recommended that existing emergency numbers such as 100, 101, 102, and 108 will be retained as secondary numbers and calls made to these should be re-routed to 112 in the future. The numbers can be withdrawn once calls to the secondary numbers reduce considerably. 

Access to the 112 emergency number will be permitted even from phones where outgoing calls have been barred or service is temporarily suspended. Users will also be able to access the service via SMS. 

As per the authority, telcos will have to provide location information and details of callers to the Integrated Emergency Communication & Response System. For the same purpose Trai has recommended the setting up of four regional database centres in each metro city by BSNL. 

The authority has also said that there should be a multi-sectoral agency with representations from Ministry of Human Affairs, Department of Telecom, and Department of Electronics and Information Technology, among others to coordinate and help in setting up the Integrated Emergency Communication & Response System.

Source : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

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