Andhra Pradesh: Emergency service-108 in need of urgent help

VIJAYAWADA: Theirs is an emergency service that is on call 24 hours. Dial toll-free108 in case of an emergency. Calls can be made from urban, rural and tribal areas. The response time taken by 108 is 18 minutes in an urban area, 21.41 minutes for help to reach a rural area and 27 minutes to reach a tribal area. Emergency staff manning 108 attend 725 pregnancy calls, and about 220 accident calls on an average in a month. There are 439 vehicles, and 2,200 staff working round the clock for this service.

Unfortunately though, the service that provides immediate help to anybody who calls 108, is in need of urgent help themselves. The vehicles are not maintained well and are facing regular breakdowns. Several vehicles are lying in the repairing garages. There are pending fuel bills that need to be attended. Staff salary had been pending for months, and was finally cleared only on Monday. The staff is also being over-utilised and the stress is affecting their own health, in which case attending an emergency service with optimum efficiency is not possible.

“We have been working for 12 years. Some vehicles have exceeded the limit of their travel-time. So many vehicles are breaking down regularly now and becoming an obstruction to the service. 80 vehicles were held back from service two days back due to lack of fuel. Till Tuesday evening 22 vehicles were kept off the roads due to bad condition of the vehicles. Until Monday we didn’t get our salaries and there is no hope for receiving our November salary on time either,” said Mr B. Kiran Kumar, president, State 108 Contract Employees Union.

The Union is demanding an increase in their salary according to the G.O implemented for the contract labour of the state government.  The Union has also given a representation to the medical and health department and the labour department against the management. They announced that they would go on a flash strike if the government does not respond to their representation. Mr Kumar demanded that the medical and health department should take an action to disburse their salaries according to the 151 GO issued for the contract employees. “If they do not do so, we will be forced to call for a sudden strike.”

But according to Mr B. Hemanth, chief operating officer, GVKEMRI,  “There is a lot of gap between fact and fiction. All the employees are not contract based workers, they are GVKEMRI employees. We have cleared all of their salaries till October. No vehicle was stopped due to fuel or any other such cause. A few vehicles may be in trouble as a part of scheduled service.  We are giving an off after every 4 days of working of 12 hours per day. This is according to the norm.”