Imagine you are in an emergency, and you call the police on their helpline number 112. You hear a 21-second Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) that will eventually guide you to a responder. In the process, precious time is being lost in case of an emergency. Arun Kumar N.T. filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the High Court of Karnataka seeking directions to the State police to remove the IVRS.
But the police argue that IVRS is necessary to filter out misdirected and unintentional calls, probably resulting from an April 22, 2016, order from the Department of Telecommunication, Government of India, that mandated “power on/ off button when short pressed thrice in quick succession” should act as a panic button and trigger a call to 112 in the local jurisdiction, in all smartphones.
While many are unaware of the panic button feature in phones, it’s triggering lakhs of unintentional calls every day to the 112 control room. Often, children playing with phones, or when the phone is kept in the pocket, the power button gets pressed triggering calls.
Role of IVRS
Sample this: a total of 7.95 crore calls landed at the IVRS for 112 in Bengaluru in 2022, of which 7.76 crore calls got disconnected at the IVRS level. There were 8.83 lakh blank calls, which were also mostly triggered by the panic button, but went through the IVRS to a responder. While 7.27 lakh calls were regarding enquiries for some information, in only 2.59 lakh calls did the callers seek police intervention.
“On an average, we get around a maximum of 2,750 genuine calls — both seeking our intervention and enquiry calls — per day in Bengaluru. But the panic button feature triggers lakhs of unintentional calls, and to filter them out we have installed IVRS. Only less than 1% are genuine calls where we need to intervene,” said K. Ramarajan, DCP (Command Centre), Bengaluru City Police.
Review of DoT policy
“The panic button feature was introduced with a good intention in the aftermath of the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case. But it is triggering lakhs of unintentional calls, forcing us to install IVRS to filter the genuine calls. We think there needs to be a review of the DoT policy in light of the ground reality. We can remove the IVRS and allow callers to directly speak to the responders if the barrage of unintentional calls stops. That will help the public also to access help better and faster in case of an emergency,” he said.
Presently, over 140 responders from a private company work in the Bengaluru City Police Control Room in three shifts. Any call that lands at the control room take a maximum of 14 minutes for the nearest Hoysala to reach the spot. A responder will receive the call within three rings will collect all the necessary details within three minutes and assign it to the Hoysala control room if there is a need for intervention. The complaint is then assigned to the nearest Hoysala van in two minutes, and the van has to reach the spot and intervene within a maximum of nine minutes.
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Published - January 12, 2023 11:45 pm IST
