An all-women Haryana State Emergency Response Centre

On March 31, 2022, an 8-year-old child from the Kaithal district of Haryana dialled number-112, the one-stop emergency response number of the Haryana state. The child informed that his mother is trying to hang herself.

The call landed in State Emergency Response Centre (SERC), Sector-3 in Panchkula, a 25-minute from the Haryana state capital Chandigarh. The communication officer at the Centre generates an event of an emergency. So it flashed to an Emergency Response Vehicle (ERV) of the police in the Kaithal district. The police reached the spot in nine minutes and saved the mother, and now the mother and child are living happily.

In another incident on June 11 of the same year, a 12-year-old girl student of Social Welfare School, Rai village in the Sonipat district of Haryana, reached the local women’s police station, along with her friend. The student is hearing and speech impaired. Her friend accompanying the student is deaf and mute. The two girls, found visibly distressed, tried to explain to the police at the station but in sign language, which the police could not understand.

The State House Officer detailed the one-stop emergency number 112 and explained the situation to the communication officer at the SERC. The call automatically transferred to another communication officer who is an expert in sign language. This time it was a video call between the victim and the communication officer sitting in SERC. The victim and her friend narrated the whole incident in sign language. The expert-communication officer immediately generates an event of a crime, of rape against the 12-year-old girl. The incident of crime was informed to the SHO.

A Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POSCO) case was registered. The Superintend of the Police of Sonipat formed a Special investigation team (SIT) to crack the case and arrested the accused.

But, what turned crucial was the conversation between the victim and the expert-communication officer into evidence before the court.

These are only two among about 5 lakh calls for emergency response handled by an all-women contingent of 158 communication officers serving at SERC, Panchakula, round the clock and playing their part of the role for help to reach the gold hour to the distressed in saving lives in the case of accidents, fire mishaps, crimes and a host of others incidents of emergencies.

Why does a whole women-contingent of officials handle the communications of the emergency services? Responding to it, Additional Director General of Police, Telecom and IT, Arshinder Singh Chawla, and the nodal officer of the State Emergency Response Service (SERS) said, “Not to sound biased, women have a sixth sense. A mother may be engaged in her daily chores while the child is playing around. But, her attention would not go away from the child.” Most of the time, when a person in distress calls for emergency help, “it was not the content or words they speak. But, the tone and the stamps of distress and emotion of the caller speak of the situations of emergency.

It came up and was identified during the deliberations before the launch of the emergency services as an important aspect included. A decision then was taken to appoint a whole woman contingent of communication officers.

The 158 contingent of women communication officers handling the SERC at Panchkula undergoes training on various aspects of responding and communicating in-house. The officers work in four shifts round the clock.

Deploying all-women Communication Officers (call takers) deployed under Haryana 112 ensures with a motto of “empathy in response” and that all calls from citizens from across the state- whether for information, enquiry, suggestion or follow-up are heard.

The well-qualified and trained communication officers are leading the first point of contact for the people seeking help. They are multilingual speakers who can communicate in English, Hindi, Punjab and Haryanavi. Besides, dedicated officers can converse with people with special needs and respond to situations to alert help to reach them in time.

In March 2023 alone, they handled about 5 lakh calls, the highest since the inception of Haryana 112 in August 2021. In March 2023, about 86,966 call dispatches were made for help to reach from Haryana 112 in incidents of emergency for the need within the golden hour, saving lives, attending to crime against women, fire accidents and the like.

The citizen’s satisfaction (feedback) level of Haryana 112 crossed 93 per cent in March 2023 and scored above 90 per cent satisfaction level from the people of Haryana since its inception.

Empathy, technology, process, strategy, and vision are at the core driving the Haryana 112 to reach people in distress, calling from anywhere in the state to reach out and help them with a target of 15 minutes in urban and 20 minutes in rural areas.