Emergency? You may just need to dial 2611

A National Emergency Telephone Number -- 2611 -- has been mooted by a Pune-based Telecom engineer as a versatile communication platform during emergency and disaster management in the country.

Dial 2611, a National Emergency Telephone Number system is designed and developed as a nationwide single telephone number assigned to integrate local, regional and national help lines and is easy to remember, Dinkar Borde, a scientist and an innovator, said.

Borde has submitted his proposal to Bureau of Police Research and Development in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs last October for its consideration.

The NETNS is designed in such a way that it will inform, arrange and coordinate forces at the emergency point and is a single telephone number network for India, Borde said. Borde, a former technology consultant with the government of India, told PTI on Tuesday that in his proposal he had suggested that all existing local emergency numbers should be amalgamated into Dial 2611.

The number has been chosen mainly for two reasons -- it is secured and fool-proof and is easy to remember for public as it relates to November 26 terrorist attack in Mumbai.

"Even if you dial 2611, that is enough for giving hopes to get the emergency solved--whether at home or on beaches or from places from where you may not be in a position to 'communicate' or 'call', he said.

Borde said the position of the person in the midst of emergency will be identified on a central system monitors and the rescue team will be there to assess the situation within minutes.

"Mostly you are supposed to speak more clearly about your situation and emergency to have proper help in minimum time. All this is possible because, NETNS is a powerful system geared up with high class next generation telecom and info-tech tools," Borde said.

"Dial 2611 is a combination of man, machine and high-tech next generation telecom tools like global positioning system, geographical information system, satellite, mobile, IT and others for prompt response with perfect rescue coordination with local based services," he added.

NETNS has another advantage as it uses artificial intelligence, Borde said.

"I have added artificial intelligence and multilingual feature in this intelligent interactive platform of Dial 2611 which will respond in local as well as regional language."

When a caller dials 2611, the call goes to a national switchboard which after noting his location will connect him to nearby public safety answering point where specially trained officer will try to understand your emergency and depending on situation PSAP will arrange local rescue force at you.

Explaining how the system works, Borde said, like during terror attacks, it will co-ordinate with the National Security Guards or other relevant department.

The entire system will be under the Home Ministry which will give sufficient feedback to defence ministry and will be staffed by trained officials, he said.

'2611' number integrates all the local helpline number 100 -- police, 101 -- Fire, 102, -- ambulance -- 103 and child, woman and senior citizen protection -- 108.

Borde claimed that Dial 2611 will be more effective than US' 911 or any other emergency numbers in the world because it has multi-lingual, hi-tech, high end tailor-made architectures and technology platforms.

"To tackle voice over Internet protocol or Internet calls or fake calls are still headache for 911.

Hacking, tracking, interrupting is difficult with Dial 2611 because it will be instantly located, monitored, traced and blocked for further misuse or damage," he claimed.