The helpline for children, 1098, will continue to operate and its integration with national emergency number 112 will ensure interoperability and help in enhancing the scope of emergency services available to children, the government said on Wednesday.
“The Ministry would continue to operate the Helpline 1098 in strict compliance with the provisions of Juvenile Justice Act 2015,” the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) said in a press statement.
The helpline 1098, used to be referred as Childline, has now been referred as Children Helpline.
It also said that calls made to 1098 will land at Children Helpline of Ministry of WCD and the child would be provided necessary assistance as in the present. However, the back-end technological integration with Emergency Response Support System (ERSS) 112 would “enhance the scope of access to emergency response services through voice call, SMS and be GPS and GIS enabled”.
“This interoperability between the ERSS 112, and Children helpline 1098 will ensure that all distress calls for help for or by children if landing on 112 shall be transferred to the Children Helpline in real time and immediate response action will take place.”
The Ministry said that there were certain limitations in the functioning of 1098, which it was attempting to address.
“The existing Children helpline 1098 is limited to only 603 districts out of 750 plus districts in the country. The process of reaching out to a child takes about 60 minutes which is absolutely unsatisfactory. The call logs are maintained manually and lack interoperability with other services like police, fire, ambulance, leading to loss of precious time in distress situations. The Ministry intends to address these shortcomings in the new revamped system,“ the statement added.
Children Helpline 1098 will also have additional solutions such as voice calls, SMS service, intelligent call distribution, call conferencing, digital logging of all voice conversations, caller location identification, feedback mechanism and identification of most vulnerable areas of crime on integrated Geographic Information System group.
