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Indian Express
12-07-2025
- Indian Express
‘From traffic chaos to chilling crimes': Inside Bengaluru's 112 Emergency Control Room
Beside the commissioner's office in Bengaluru lies a control room within the walls of a newly constructed command centre. This is a place that never sleeps. This is Bengaluru's Emergency Control Room – known simply as '112' – where every ring of the phone could be the start of a life-saving rescue, a high-stakes investigation, or sometimes, a heartbreaking mystery. As per the data from June 11, 2025, to July 8, 2025, the control room has fielded over 17,000 calls – each one acted upon by trained personnel working around the clock in three shifts. The command centre is managed by BVG India, a private agency contracted by the police. According to Jyothi T, audit in-charge and trainer at the centre, 'Eighty-seven per cent of these calls are genuine emergency-related cases.' The remaining calls are blank, or even fake calls that are vulgar in nature, often targeted at women responders, she added. Despite the misuse of the service, Jyothi said, the team has maintained an 'impressive average response time of just three seconds to pick up a call and under two minutes to dispatch police teams.' The centre uses both auto-dispatch and manual dispatch systems. The centre trainer said that dispatches are always based on vehicle proximity to the incident location, with vehicles known as Hoysala patrol units being alerted, and responders cutting through city traffic to reach a caller in distress. Traffic-related grievances top the list of calls that are received by the centre. Complaints range from congestion at key junctions to unruly crowds. Public disturbances and crowd management cases also spike during festivals or political events. However, there are more serious – and sometimes tragic – calls too. 'We get multiple suicide alerts, murder reports, and missing persons cases every week,' said Jyoti. Not every call is routine, with some remaining etched in the memories of the responders. Describing one such case, Jyoti said, 'During Ugadi last year, a 28-year-old woman called us crying at 2 am. She said her husband was beating her, and her children were dead. But then she said, 'They are right in front of me, speaking to me'.' 'It turned out that the woman was reportedly suffering from mental illness, and she had suffocated her two children and killed her husband. The children were found dead in festive clothes, adding a chilling layer to an already tragic case,' she added. Even amidst incidents like these, the system stays operational. 'We log, assess, and dispatch,' said Jyoti, adding that 'we can't afford errors or delays.' In addition to 112 calls, the centre oversees 7,500 CCTV cameras placed across Bengaluru, all maintained by Honeywell Aerospace Technologies. These include PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom) cameras, HD units, Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras (876 in number), and Facial Recognition System (FRS) cameras (1,500 in number). (Bhoomika Roy Bannerjee is an intern with The Indian Express)
Time of India
09-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
No GST grant for 2 months, NMC faces financial crisis
Nagpur: The (NMC) is facing a severe financial crunch after failing to receive the mandatory goods and services tax (GST) compensatory grants from the state govt for two consecutive months—April and May—of the current financial 2023–24, NMC received a monthly GST grant of Rs137 crore. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now For the 2024–25 financial year, the civic body anticipated an 8% hike, expecting monthly grants to rise to Rs148 crore. However, not a single rupee was disbursed in the first two months, severely impacting the NMC's ability to meet its financial to NMC accounts and finance department officials, the civic body's average monthly expenditure is Rs148 crore. This includes salaries, pensions, electricity and water bills, and crucial payments to private agencies like AG Enviro and BVG India for door-to-door waste collection. Additionally, it covers remuneration for contract-based staff, including security guards, computer operators, and ex-servicemen deployed in the nuisance detection squad.A senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the NMC so far managed to meet its financial obligations for April and May by dipping into its reserve funds, covering an estimated Rs296 crore. However, the situation remains financial stress has already begun to show. Pension disbursement to retired employees, typically done on the first of each month, was delayed and only released on May 8. "If GST grants continue to be delayed, even employee salaries will be at risk," the official within NMC link the disruption in funds to the state govt's populist spending ahead of the upcoming assembly elections. "While the govt is announcing freebies, it is failing to release even the committed grants to urban local bodies. Rather than offering giveaways, the focus should be on long-term schemes to build employment skills for young women, farmers, and other marginalised groups," said the delay has raised serious questions about state govt's fiscal discipline and its commitment to supporting civic bodies at a time when cities are grappling with mounting service demands.
