Bomb hoax calls making life difficult for staff-crunched PCRs

The bomb hoax calls received by the Police Control Room which comes under the Delhi Police, is sending cops into a tizzy, all of whom are already burdened with routine PCR calls due to shortage of staff, said a highly placed source. As per the data related to bomb hoax calls accessed by Millennium Post, in 2015, from January 1 to March 15, 149 hoax calls were made to the Police Control Room. Meanwhile, in 2016 from January 1 till March 15, 13 calls have been made. On the other hand, in 2013, a total 49 bomb hoax calls were received by the Delhi Police while in 2014, 50 calls were received.

According to the data available with the Delhi Police, 22,000 calls are made to the Police Control Room (PCR) every day. Based on which, each call is thoroughly checked and out of these 22,000 calls, 7000 to 8000 PCR calls are attended to and PCR vans are dispatched to the place from where the call is made. The response time to each PCR call is between five to fifteen minutes.

Explaining the system of how a PCR responds to a call, a senior Delhi Police official on the condition of anonymity said: “Each PCR van has three persons. One is the driver, second is the in-charge and third is the gunman. Due to shortage of staff, in most cases, two persons take charge of the PCR van. Out of which, one is armed with a gun. Since a lot of the staff is diverted towards security arrangements in the New Delhi district, the shortage of staff is greatly felt in areas of Outer district and South-West district,”

“When we get a call from areas like Outer Delhi, like South Rohini, the usual response time of five to fifteen minutes in which a PCR van reaches the place is exceeded. The mechanism of PCR calls works in such a way that a call is first tracked at the call center and simultaneously the van patrolling the area reaches the exact spot. Once a PCR van reaches the place, it is their duty, as the first persons who represent the police force to deal with any situation, be it a road rage scuffle or an accident. From there onwards, the PCR vans relay the information to the District police who carry out the investigation. However, the problem of shortage of staff coupled with incessant hoax calls definitely disrupts the normal functioning of the PCR system,” added the official.