The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : EMRI saves 1,500 lives so far

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 03, 2006

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

EMRI saves 1,500 lives so far

Staff Reporter

`108' to be extended to 35 more towns by June

To have 500 employees, 100 ambulances `EMRI has accomplished in 150 days what took two decades in US' Gadgets to locate victims needed

HYDERABAD: The Emergency Management Research Institute (EMRI) that manages `108' will forge ahead with the vision to respond to 2 million calls a day and save 2 million lives a year nationally by 2010.

This was announced by EMRI CEO Venkat Changavalli at a function to celebrate EMRI crossing the 1,500-mark in terms of lives saved. 108 is currently available in nine cities in the State and by June this year, it will be operational in 35 more municipal towns with a population of around 90,000.

EMRI will then have 500 employees, own and operate 100 ambulances equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and cover a population of about two crores, roughly 25 per cent of the State's population, he said.

In six months of operations, EMRI's 30 ambulances had served a population of about 1.2 crore across nine locations, saving 1536 lives, he said.

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