Maharashtra forest dept to start 24x7 helpline soon

Mumbai: In a first in India, Maharashtra’s forest department has set up a 24x7 helpline to respond to emergencies and enquiries related to wild animals and reptiles. A specially-trained team of eight will man the helpline call-centre in Goregaon (west), while two coordinators, based in Nagpur and Pune, will supervise the work. The helpline will deal with emergencies by letting the caller speak to the officials concerned and will also give updates on action taken on the information provided. The helpline will be operational within 10 days after its inauguration by Maharashtra chief minister.

People will be able to call and get their issues resolved by dialling toll-free numbers: 1926 or 1800225364. The call centre will have eight people to attend to callers. These eight people recruited by the service provider — SAAR IT resources Pvt. Ltd. have been given training by the forest department. Two senior officials from the forest department will act as experts who will review the callers’ inquiries on a weekly basis. One of the officers seated in Nagpur will be handling the Vidarbha region, the others will look after the remaining.

“The centre is ready to be inaugurated but final technical issues are being sorted. It will be thrown open for people within 10 days by chief minister in Nagpur,” said Sudhir Mungantiwar, state forest minister.

If a person calls up to report an emergency, he will be asked to directly dial ‘0’ and will be connected to the attendee who will connect the person to the field officer of the mentioned area via conference call in order to determine the location being discussed. Once the issue is resolved, the caller will be informed.

In case of other inquiries a person calling would be given four options will be asked to introduce himself in the language of his choice and then given contact numbers and general information. All the eight people are expected to be well-versed with the local language (Marathi), Hindi and English.

“The main aim of this service is to deal with critical information in real time. We are expecting positive response from people as this platform will give them freedom to come up with ideas on how to handle a situation in their area,” said additional principal chief conservator of forest (Information Technology & Policy).