Policing goes hi-tech: Bengaluru gets state of the art helpline Namma 100'
Bengaluru: The city police control room has gone hi-tech with the launch of the state-of-the-art ‘Namma 100’ emergency response service, which was inaugurated by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday.
The service, which was previously Dial 100 and now renamed Namma 100, aims to provide quick call response and Hoysala intervention. It is connected to the Command Centre that has seamless integration with police personnel and on-ground resources. The upgradation is in tune with international standards and it is said that the idea was conceptualised after Home Minister Dr G. Parameshwar and senior police officers visited London a few months ago to study policing there.
It is said to be the first-of-its-kind Public Safety Answering Point in the country and 90 communication officers from a private company will be on the job to attend calls. Earlier, there were only 20 lines and the system has been upgraded to 85 lines and it will soon have lines. Three services – Emergency response, Women helpline and Elders helpline – are available at the PSAP and on contacting Namma 100, callers will be given the option to select any of these services.
Going a step further, the police have also planned to give appointments to citizens on non-emergency cases like passport verification, so that the citizens are not made to wait at stations. Once such a request is raised, ‘Namma 100’ communication officers will contact the jurisdictional police and schedule an appointment. This is expected to be implemented within a month.Currently, the city police receive around 3,000 distress calls every day and the new facility is expected to bring down the response time.Inaugurating the service, Mr Siddaramaiah said that the Bengaluru police were technologically more advanced than any other metropolitan police in the country. “The police should make the best use of technology to curb crime. They should bring in visible changes in the city by initiating action against both habitual and budding offenders. After all, people want a crime-free city and senior officials should make up their minds and decide to work towards it. Though making a city crime free is difficult, I believe it is not an impossible task.”
Woman loses passport, CM attends call
After inaugurating the Namma 100 service, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah attended a distress call and a woman caller, who had not expected the CM to attend the call, was surprised when Mr Siddaramaiah spoke to her. She had called to seek police help as she had lost her passport in Kalasipalya. Mr Siddaramaiah assured her that the police would definitely the problem and advised her to file a complaint through Bengaluru City Police website or mobile app.
