999 plagued with unnecessary calls

Desk Report: The help desk operating with a toll-free phone number under the National Emergency Services has been plagued with unnecessary phone calls thanks to lack of public awareness, reports Daily Sun.
The unnecessary calls keep the emergency helpline number — 999 — busy almost all the time, sources said.
They said most of the callers do not know that others, who really need emergency services, may not access the number if the line is engaged. The helpline number became popular shortly after its lauch aimed to provide emergency services to the doorstep of the people across the country. The helpline facilitates three services – police, ambulance and fire service. Only the calls based on which services are provided are considered Call for Service or CFS. The toll-free call service remains open round the clock and anyone within the country can dial the number to get any of these services. The help service is operated from its office at police control room on Abdul Gani Road in the capital.
According to officials, the number of blank calls, where people actually call but do not talk, are very high. Many call 999 only to check whether it is active or not.
The helpline has, however, many success stories for facilitating instant services by connecting service seekers to service providers immediately.
On March 30, residents of a house in the city’s Uttara area discovered that a fox had entered the house and after several failed attempts to get rid of it, house lord Javed called 999 for emergency service.
And within minutes, Fire Service and Civil Defense rushed to Uttara and managed to capture the wild animal after an hour of intense efforts.
On December 14 last year, national emergency helpline 999 foiled a child marriage attempt after a neighbour made a phone call, informing the help desk people that a 14-year-old girl was getting married to an 18-year-old boy in Chattogram.
The helpline immediately connected him with the nearest police station and a police contingent was immediately sent. Later, police foiled the marriage attempt and rescued the girl.
Source said that since the launch of this service on December 12, 2017, a total of 50,28,764 calls were received till September 17 this year.
Of these, only 32,818 calls were directly solved (Call for Service or CFS) while all the other calls were unnecessary.
However, the authorities said 18 percent of the total calls have been served in some ways against the call.
According to the officials concerned, the helpline receives as many as 80,000 prank calls each month, which are disturbing calls while around 90,000 calls are miss calls.
Among the service seekers, people call to talk about issues such as crime, violence against women, child marriage, family problems, theft, hijack and clashes.
Mohammad Tabarak Ullah, Superintendent of Police at the National Emergency Service 999, said: “We receive 17,000 calls on an average a day. We provide our assigned services as fast as possible if the call is actually a CFS”. “Still people do not know we can provide only three assigned services and it is actually an on-the-spot service,” he added.
He said: “At the beginning, the number of unnecessary calls was very high. However, the numbers of such calls were less now.”
“Many people called unnecessarily. False information is also given by some people. There is lack of publicity about the national emergency services 999. People still don’t know when to call and when not to call.”
“In the last 6 months, we have received around 82 percent unnecessary calls,” he added.
He further said, “Though people of the big city are known about the service, but rural people are still unaware of the services. So, we need campaign.”
“We are organising awareness programmes with the help of a private organisation across the country to make people aware of usage of the services,” he added. The police official said: “We are trying our best to give services to the people. But due to lack of logistic support, the response time is high at this moment.”