KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that the state-of-the-art Central Command & Control (CC&C) has been established in Karachi to provide ambulatory services, fire services, urban search & rescue services, water rescue services through one-dial helpline, 1122.
“It’s the very first-time government-owned emergency rescue service launched in the province,” he said while talking to the media just after inaugurating the headquarters of Sindh Emergency Service, Rescue 1122, and its Central Command and Control at Gulshan-e-Iqbal on Friday.
He was accompanied by his advisors Rasool Bux Chandio and Murtaza Wahab.
The CM Sindh said that state-of-the art post-medical health facilities had been established in four districts of Karachi and one in Larkana along with the establishment of rescue stations.
“The central command & control is established in Karachi and the ambulatory service, fire service, urban search & rescue service, and water rescue service shall be provided through one-dial helpline, 1122,” he added.
He said the water rescue service would deal with the issues of urban flooding and the plan was under way to integrate police emergency service into the Rescue 1122.
Murad Ali said the 1122 service was working in all districts of Karachi, as well as in Larkana, Thatta, Sujawal, Qambar-Shahdadkot, and Hyderabad and it would be launched in Badin district within the next two days. He added that 12 districts would be added to Sindh Emergency Service Rescue 1122.
The CM Sindh announced that the rescue service would also be established on main highways after every 50km for which locations have already been identified where work was in progress.
He said the first batch of 107 cadets was provided with specialized rescue training from Punjab, and another batch of 315 cadets was under training. “These are purely technical positions,” he said, adding the Sindh Emergency Service Rescue-1122 was modeled after successful emergency services elsewhere in Pakistan.
He said he himself dialled the 1122 number from his mobile phone and lodged a complaint about a fire incident in the Sadar area and the operator inquired about the details.
He added he had advised the Central Command and Control administration to update/upgrade the 1122 Service software so that the location of the complainer could automatically start reflecting on the screen.
“In this way, fake complaints could automatically be identified, and genuine complaints would be addressed at the earliest without indulging unnecessary queries with the complainer.”
Talking about law and order, the CM Sindh said he had held a high-level meeting earlier and had given clear instructions to the law enforcement agencies to launch a vigorous operation against street criminals.
He added that during the last two weeks, such incidents had occurred, where some citizens lost their lives while resisting the muggers. “The police have made some arrests and the killers would be brought to book at any cost,” he said, adding that some of the habitual criminals had been released by the court for which he had directed the prosecutors to focus on investigation and made the cases strong.
To a question, he said Murtaza Wahab, as an administrator of KMC, worked hard and he had no need of any official responsibility to serve the people, but he would be doing it as a party [PPP] worker.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022