Soon, health dept to run '108' ambulances on its own

Bengaluru: The government will soon operate '108' ambulances directly, without a private agency's involvement, Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao said on Wednesday.

Addressing reporters here, he said the health department successfully completed a trial run in Chamarajanagar district to run '108' ambulances by itself.

"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 715 ambulances in the state 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 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 consulting experts and we developed a software. This will also save the government several hundred crores of rupees and this will be wholly our responsibility," said the minister.

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

In this year's budget, the government had announced that the '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 said.