Central Railway to maintain 2 registers for queries

Tired and annoyed with unrelated calls on the Railway Police Force (RPF) security helpline 182, e.g. housewives asking for instructions on how to attach the regulator to a cylinder, the Central Railway (CR) has decided to maintain two registers to separate the serious queries from trivial or irrelevant ones.

While the RPF helpline wasn’t popular with commuters in the first place, after the railway ministry pushed the number with several campaigns, officials were fed up with the number of unrelated calls they were getting.

“At first, we used to get only two to three calls a day. Then, in January, the ministry and both Central and Western Railway began to make announcements and put up posters to make commuters, especially women, aware that they could call on this number if they were in danger,” said an RPF official.

However, the campaign has become a pain as women from all walks of life have started calling on the helpline. “We have got calls from women who want help on how to attach a regulator to a cylinder, and women who are depressed, lonely or going through a divorce. The number was created so that women commuters who were in danger could call for help but now, out of 20 to 25 calls per day, only five are of importance,” the official added.

Two registers will be maintained so that RPF personnel do not waste time in reading all entries and separating the important ones from the unrelated ones. The helpline was launched by Union railway minister Suresh Prabhu last year during his budget speech. The helpline is unique in that it pings the nearest tower from the phone through which the call has been made, thereby giving the exact position of the commuter in danger. The number cannot be dialed from outside a railway station or train so as to avoid hoax calls that are usually made on such helplines.