The Mangaluru City police conducted an awareness programme on women's safety and protection through the Emergency Response Support System (ERSS) 112 from 8 am to 5 pm on Saturday.
Olympian M R Poovamma flagged off the initiative organised in front of City Police Commissioner‘s office to popularise ERSS and said that the programme is aimed at instilling a feeling of confidence and safety in women.
This is also an attempt to popularise ERSS and reach out to the public, particularly women, City Police Commissioner N Shashi Kumar said.
Nearly 100 police teams of PSI and above ranks will be available to address various issues, including student issues, eve-teasing, family issues, harassment at the workplace, and cyber threats. Every team has a woman officer or staff and the woman's confidentiality will be maintained. The city police has 19 vehicles dedicated to ERSS, with an average response time of 15 minutes on the outskirts of the city.
A mock drive on how ERSS responds was held in the presence of Poovamma and her mother Janaki under the guidance of the City Police Commissioner near Athena Hospital in Mangaluru.
Addressing the students and staff of the hospital, Shashi Kumar said that the maximum response time on receiving a call to ERSS 112 is five to 10 minutes inside the city, while it is 15 minutes on the outskirts.
Stating that the service is a dedicated centralised system, the City Police Commissioner said that the centralised number 112 stands for one country-one emergency response system. The calls made by public to 112 will get routed to Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) based at Bengaluru and the information will be dispatched to the District Coordination Centre (DCC).
The ERSS vehicle nearest to the point from where the call is made, will track the location through GPRS and will rush for the assistance. In the last eight months, ERSS 112 has responded to over 4,000 calls. On an average, 30 to 40 calls are received daily through the system, explained the Commissioner.