How a UP service is changing police response to citizens' emergency calls

Unlike the usual Dial 100 service, UP100 uses high-end networking and GIS technologies to make emergency responses much quicker and decidely more efficient

The voice on the other end is full of panic. Deepika Jatav (name changed) quickly adjusts her headphones and starts punching the keyboard. The caller tells her that his neighbour has encroached on his land in Barigaon village in Gorakhpur district, Uttar Pradesh. That morning, the neighbour came with large number of people and forcefully started constructing a wall on the land. 

Deepika asks the caller for his location — district, police station, village and nearby landmark. She quickly fills a form on her computer. Another computer screen on her desk immediately shows the caller's location on a map. Deepika asks a few more questions and with a single click, ends the call and submits the form. 

Around Deepika sit hundreds of other women, each with two computer screens, in several rows. They wear purple-yellow salwar suits and headphones, and are constantly on calls. The front wall of the hall has giant video screens showing details of the women on the job. A few more giant screens on the wall display details of the callers. Adjacent to this hall is another smaller hall with hundreds of desks, each with three computer screens. Several uniform-clad police women and men operate these machines. 

The moment Deepika ends the call, the details of the Barigaon caller pop up on one of the computers in the second hall. The screen shows five police vehicles patrolling within the caller's vicinity. The policewoman operating the computer clicks on the vehicle closest to the caller. The computer screen starts showing the vehicle’s movement towards Bariagaon. In some 16 minutes, the vehicle reaches the spot. After about 15 minutes, the screen receives the update -- an ‘Action Taken Report’ from the vehicle staff that reads: “Land dispute... construction stopped... disputing sides told to go to the police station.” 

Welcome to UP100 Bhavan, the headquarters of the Uttar Pradesh government’s innovative UP100 service that's changing the police's response to citizens’ emergency needs. 

The hi-tech communication centre claims to be responding to 13,000 to 18,000 callers in distress from across rural and urban Uttar Pradesh every day by sending police staff. The centralised service has a dedicated fleet of 3,200 four-wheeler and 1,600 two-wheeler police vehicles, which reach callers anywhere in the state in 12 minutes on average on receiving calls, scheme data shows. The service has saved lives, helped women and elderly in stress and averted violent incidents in hundreds of cases, the government claims. 

Unlike the conventional Dial 100, UP100 uses high-end networking and Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies to make emergency responses quicker and more efficient. An all-woman team of more than 400 communication officers, employed by Tech Mahindra — the technology partner — attend the citizen’s phone calls. 

The service was started in 2016 under the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party administration but was later adopted and expanded by the Bhartiya Janata Party government. “The era in which people kept calling for police and the police never reached is over. Now UP100 has made 100 per cent sure that if you call the police and if you need them, they would definitely reach,” said Dhruv Kant Thakur, Additional Director General Police, UP. 

Uniform-clad police personnel operating a set of three computers each at UP100 Bhavan. The UP100 service uses high-end networking and GIS to make emergency responses quicker and more efficient

How it is different

To call the police in emergency, the 100 number is used uniformly across India, but service response status varies from state to state, district to district and even police station to police station. In most states, the emergency response is managed at the district level by the district Police Control Rooms. During the past decade, some metro cities also came up with city-wide police control rooms for Dial 100 services. Responses to calls in these services are managed with the help of local police stations. Most of these Dial 100 services have scarce resources and technology and also suffer the discretion of local police staff and leadership, resulting in delayed or no responses. 

In 2015, Madhya Pradesh became the first state to start a state-wide centralised emergency police response service, in which calls from across state are received at one control room and vehicles assigned for response. The following year, UP became the second state to do so. The government has budgeted Rs 1,600 crore for the service, over a period of five years. 

UP100 is different from the traditional Dial 100 in many ways. The police staff is independent of the local police station and works under executive control of the UP100 headquarters. The emergency call is first received by a female, non-police communication officer. “The non-police female communication officers are specifically trained to talk to callers with empathy and forward the needy calls for action without any bias,” said Thakur. This ensures that all citizens from across the length and breadth of the state get the same quality of services, without any discretion from local officials, their commitment or local political situations. 

In UP100, activities and processes at each level are digitally recorded to ensure accountability. In the traditional Dial 100, documentation is done manually. UP100 also has dedicated staff for monitoring all operations and quality control. The Dial 100 services are monitored by local staff, which has many other responsibilities. The UP100 receives messages from all kinds of electronic communication channels, while Dial 100 only operates on phone calls. 

UP100 Bhavan, headquarters of the Uttar Pradesh govt’s UP100 service, which claims that it responds to 13,000-18,000 distressed urban and rural callers from across the state every day

How it works

When the communication officer takes a call, the caller’s location is shown on the map. The call officer then sends all this information to the dispatch officer, whose map then shows details of the response vehicles closest to the caller. Each vehicle is fitted with a small computer, called the mobile data terminus. The dispatch officer sends a message to the vehicle on this terminus. Besides, the staff on the vehicles also get the message on their mobiles and the wireless devices. The dispatch officer calls the vehicle staff to confirm receipt of the message. The staff have to acknowledge the message on their devices. The dispatch officer can track the vehicle's route and arrival at the troubled spot. 

On arrival, the vehicle staff takes the action based on ‘Standard Operating Procedures’ and hands over the matter to the local police station if need. It then files the action taken report. The next day, a dedicated team calls back 50 per cent of the callers for feedback. “We ask them how was the service and if they had any complaint,” Thakur added. 

According to Thakur, pinpointing the caller's exact location has been the biggest challenge. “The more accurate the location, is the earlier will the police reach. We get location-based services (LBS) from the telecom companies. In the urban area the accuracy of the location is 500-700 meters but in rural areas it is 5-8 kilometers,” he said.  

To address this gap, the UP100 collected digital maps of all village boundaries in UP. Each village was mapped on to the correct police station jurisdiction and integrated in GIS applications. The GIS application helps the centre identify police jurisdiction at any point of time accurately. The police also collected a database of more than 200,000 local landmarks from over 1,500 police stations. These landmarks were integrated with the digital map of UP100. As and when the emergency alert is received, the communication officer asks for the nearest landmarks. “This helps us quickly and accurately locate them,” said Thakur. 

The UP government hired Tech Mahindra, through competitive bidding, to supply, install, commission and maintain the technology and infrastructure and provide operational support for the service. According to a company spokesperson, it has employed 719 people across three locations — Lucknow, Allahabad and Ghaziabad. About 400 UP Police personnel are employed at the UP100 headquarters while another 25,000 are employed on the vehicles that attend emergencies on the ground. The ground staff is administratively part of the district police but does full-time UP100 duty. 

“Right now, all police staff in UP100 are engaged from the existing police force. We have now requested the government to make additional recruitments,” said a senior police official. While the Tech Mahindra staff takes the first calls from citizens and operates and maintains the technology and infrastructure at the headquarters, the UP police staff handles vehicle dispatches and other decision-making and administrative work.

Other states are now lining up to learn from the MP and UP models to start centralised integrated emergency response services. Given that the technology and operations for the service had to be outsourced to private players, other states may also have to depend on private enterprise for sustainability of these services. 

“We will have to work with companies that have this expertise. We don’t have that in the government. We shall have to go by this model,” said a senior police official with UP100. But does involvement of private players affect governance? “No. Their involvement is limited to providing technology and operations. The decision-making always vests with the government,” he added. 

The impact

Police officers in the UP100 said it was difficult to draw any direct co-relation between delivery of emergency police services and the rate of crime. Thakur, however, insisted: “The moment police reach or someone calls 100, the escalation of dispute stops. The immediate crisis is handled. It many cases it’s as important as saving lives of people. We have averted several suicide attempts. But if some serious action has to be taken, or an FIR has to be registered, that will be done by the local police only.”

According to official data, since the service's inception, UP100 has responded to more than 12 million calls, of which close to 60 per cent came from rural areas while rest were from cities. Of the total calls, the highest (24 per cent) were about normal disputes, 15 per cent about domestic violence on women and elderly, nine per cent were property disputes and seven per cent were about female harassment. 

A few people whom Business Standard spoke with in Lucknow and in rural areas in Amethi complained about delay in the arrival of UP100 vehicles, but almost all appreciated the service and said they were happy with the police response. 

Harilal Vishwakarma of Tirahu Baazar village in Amethi told Business Standard he had called UP100 about six months ago, when an upper caste Thakur beat up his friend belonging to the Lohaar community. “I had seen the UP100 van patrolling in the region. So, I called the number and it arrived pretty quickly. The police then helped in the settlement and got the Thakur to pay my friend’s medical treatment.”

With several other states lining up at UP100 headquarters to learn how to replicate the model, the UP government isn't fighting shy of taking credit. Citizens, who for long have been used to a non-responsive police force administration, also don't seem to be complaining. 

One link of the UP100 chain, however, did complain. When Business Standard stopped by a UP100 van patrolling on the Lucknow-Amethi highway, its staff complained of long working hours and no holidays. “We work all seven days in the week in odd shifts. We don’t get even a single off in normal course. Please pass this message to the government that it should also think about us,” said the constable who led the team of three in the van.