Single emergency number for India gets DoT nod

New Delhi: A single emergency number 112 will soon be a reality in India as the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has approved the proposal of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on this long standing need.The existing emergency numbers will continue to exist for a period of one year.[caption id="attachment_2450912" align="alignleft" width="259"] File photo[/caption]The new all-inclusive emergency number will be 112 and the existing emergency numbers such as 100, 101, 102 and 108 will be retained as secondary numbers which will be re-routed.Eventually, the older numbers will be closed in a phased manner, DoT said.TRAI earlier recommended to implement public safety answering point-based integrated emergency communication and response system in the country that would be accessed through a single emergency number 112.DoT, however, rejected TRAI's proposal of global positioning system (GPS) enabled mobile phones."TRAI recommendation of GPS-enabled cellphones is not accepted as there is large percentage of low cost handsets with subscribers which do not support GPS," the DoT said.DoT suggested the telecom regulator study the impact of enabling all mobile phones with GPS before finalizing its view.TRAI, in a statement issued on Wednesday, reiterated its recommendations for deciding on a sunset date for incorporation of GPS feature in all mobile handsets to enable more accurate location information of callers.IANS