Karnataka govt to take over 108 ambulance services from private agency

Bengaluru: The Karnataka government will soon operate the 108 ambulances directly, without a private agency's involvement, state health minister Dinesh Gundu Rao said on Wednesday.

Addressing reporters at his office in Seshadripuram, he said that the state health department successfully completed a trial at Chamarajanagar district to run the 108 ambulances themselves.

"The ambulances will be operated by us (the department). The command control will be under us, we will manage it. We have decided to get out of the private (agreement)," he said.

The responsibility to manage nearly 715 (108 ambulances) in Karnataka rested in the hands of EMRI Green Health Services, a private agency. The government claimed that all payments to the agency were made periodically, but delayed or non-payment of salaries of over 3,400 ambulance pilots and technicians was a persistent issue.

Although the agreement had ended in 2018, it was extended and operations were continued. In the years after that, the state health department had to intervene multiple times, especially when ambulance operator unions staged protests.

"There were a lot of issues. Tenders were called multiple times; every time, there was some issue and the tender was never finalised. To resolve this, we decided to take this up ourselves after expert consultation and set up a software. This will also save the government several hundred crore rupees and this will be wholly our responsible," said the minister.

In the next three months, the department will bring all the ambulances under their control centre. This would serve the public better and the system would also improve, he said.

Earlier this year, during the state budget announcement, the government had announced that the command control of these 108 ambulances would come under its control. The control room will be headquartered in Bengaluru and there will possibly be one in every district, the minister observed.