Goverment officers upset over government plan to track calls

In an attempt to provide timely response to save life and property in emergency situations, the AAP government directed its officers to get their MTNL landline phones linked to their respective buildings so that the calls could be easily located in the national capital. The tracking of the said buildings would be done through a specially developed mechanism by the Geo-spatial Development Limited.

The government is keen to get maximum number of its employees linked to the new tracking mechanism, but the move has reportedly not gone well with a section of bureaucrats who think this would directly amount to infringement of their privacy. A senior bureaucrat said that by linking the landlines to any tracking mechanism could easily risk the privacy of the officers. “It would be better if officers are provided with tetra devises to handle emergency situations. These devices work even without any signals during emergencies.”

Another officer said that the government had already created a WhatsApp application for its ministers and senior officers to fast-track decision-making. “The same application could be used to link other government employees during emergencies.”

In his order, secretary services Rajendra Kumar said that identification of the exact location where an emergency occurs was the most important step for timely response to save life and property. He said that the GSDL had developed a mechanism to link landline phones of MTNL subscribers to the buildings in which they are located. “Whenever a call is made from linked landline number to the CATS Control Room (102), the exact location of the caller can be identified in a map and responded immediately.”

“As a first step, all MTNL landline phones located in the government buildings and the residential phones of all government employees of the NCT of Delhi are requested to be linked with the building in which it is located. This can be done through a web-based application hosted at . The Customer Account Number, which is available only in the bill, will also be required to authenticate the veracity of the landline number.” Mr Kumar said that the HoDs should ensure that all the office phones were linked to the office building where it is located and also persuade maximum number of government servants working under their administrative control to link their MTNL landline numbers.