India’s Emergency Services First to Adapt to Covid-19 Challenges

In response to the global health emergency due to Covid-19 followed by extended nationwide lock down, Avaya in India today said that thanks to the dynamic and brave UP Dial112 team, the courageous contact center agents who are serving millions of citizens are now enabled to work from home.

Asim Arun, Additional Director General (ADG), UP 112, Uttar Pradesh Police, said, “The impact of coronavirus across the world has resulted in a lot of vulnerability across business functionality and citizen safety where technology will have a pivotal role to play. We are glad that Avaya is supporting us with its technology, which will enable our employees to work from home and address distress calls in real- time and act accordingly”.

Three years ago, Avaya deployed the UP Dial112 project (formerly UP Dial100) which stands for the ‘Uttar Pradesh Police Emergency Management System’ for providing immediate relief to the people is distress living in all urban, rural and remote areas of Uttar Pradesh. Avaya worked with the UP government to build their emergency call centre, which receives more than 1.2 million calls per day, with 60% of the calls coming from rural areas and with an AVG 13.5 minutes response time (previously 35 minute).

The solution deployed is designed to provide prompt and integrated emergency services such as fire, police, ambulance, elderly help, health and women helpline through a single number ‘112’ for public safety and security across the state on a 24×7 basis which reduces the response time and can respond to multiple communications channels, including wireline, mobile, e-mail and social media. Through Avaya’s technology, the UP112 team is now seamlessly working from home. Please see CC agent working from home.

“We are all dealing with the hardships of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic and working to safeguard our families, colleagues and citizens during the crisis. In Avaya India, we have not only enabled all our staff and suppliers to work from home, but also dedicated packaged free of charge solutions to our customers in the country to enable everyone to work from home. Our teams are working remotely around the clock to quickly enable this shift and ensure that not only the continuity of our customers’ business is secured, but also, people have alternatives to secure their jobs in these difficult days. The team at UP Dial112 was proactive in that sense and way before the lockdown came to Avaya to quickly ensure the safety of its people; they are the backbone of our emergency response and we’re proud to have been able to be relevant to them and the country,” said Vishal Agrawal, Managing Director, Avaya, India & SAARC.