Have you ever called a PCR and hung up fuming at the inadequacy of the service? But has it ever crossed your mind that the operators could be handling up to 9,000 calls a day — and that, too, many of them fake or blank! Imagine the frustration!
However, things are changing now at the Gurgaon police control room (PCR). Operators who receive distress calls from all parts of the district — both urban and rural — say their working has vastly improved after the introduction of the new Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS).
While earlier, the operators were deluged by calls every day, the IVRS has ensured that fake and blank calls are now filtered out.
“We now attend about 800-900 calls a day, in contrast to almost the 9,000 we used to receive earlier. The IVRS has greatly reduced the stress on operators. A person who has had to deal with 300 calls a day on average now handles 30-40 genuine calls,” said PCR server operator Jitender Kumar.
According to data shared by the Gurgaon police on the IVRS trial run, operators now receive an average of 900 calls every day — of these 25-30 report crime, 30-40 are enquiries and 100-110 seek general information.
Head constable Meenakshi, who manages the PCR, said reduction in the number of blank calls has helped improve responsiveness and functioning of the operators and police.
“Imagine someone picking up the phone 300 times a day — and 95 per cent of the time it is either a blank or a fake call! It can be utterly frustrating. Now things are better,” she said.
“Often operators at the PCR are unable to communicate effectively with the callers, just due to the sheer number of calls they have to deal with, but now things will improve,” assured Gurgaon police PRO Ravinder Kumar.
