Headquarters of comprehensive ambulance, fire and rescue services 1122 inaugurated

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Friday inaugurated the headquarters of the Sindh Emergency Service, Rescue 1122, and its Central Command and Control in the Gulshan-e-Iqbal area. He explained on the occasion that a state-of-the-art Central Command & Control (CC&C) had been established in Karachi to provide ambulance service, fire service, urban search and rescue service, and water rescue service through a single emergency call centre number 1122.

He was accompanied by his advisers Rasool Bux Chandio and Murtaza Wahab. “It is the very first-time a government-owned emergency rescue service has been launched in the province,” he maintained.

Shah stated that state-of-the-art health facilities had been established in four districts of Karachi and one in Larkana along with the establishment of rescue stations. He said that the urban rescue service would deal with the issues of urban flooding and the process was under way to integrate the police emergency service with the Rescue 1122 service.

The CM remarked that the 1122 service had been working in all the districts of Karachi, Larkana, Thatta, Sujawal, Kambar-Shahdadkot, and Hyderabad and it would be launched in the Badin district within two days. He added that 12 districts would soon be added to the Sindh Emergency Service Rescue 1122.

Shah announced that the rescue service would also be established on main highways after every 50 kilometres, for which locations had already been identified where work was in progress.

He said that the first batch of 107 cadets had been provided with specialised rescue training in Punjab, and another batch of 315 cadets was receiving training. “These are purely technical positions,” he said, adding that the Sindh Emergency Service Rescue 1122 was modelled on other successful emergency services elsewhere in the country.

The CM said that in order to check the efficiency of the service, he himself dialed 1122 on his mobile phone and fictitiously lodged a complaint about a fire in the Saddar area, to which the operator asked him about his location.

He added that he had advised the Central Command and Control administration to upgrade the 1122 service software so that the location of the complainant could automatically start showing on the computer screen of the call centre operator. “In this way, fake complaints could automatically be identified, and genuine complaints would be addressed at the earliest without indulging in unnecessary queries with the complainant.”

Responding to a question, the CM said the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) was not a coalition partner of his government, but they had developed a good working relationship with the party. He added that MQM-P leaders had no issue with his government but one of them might have some reservations in his individual capacity, on which the media should not waste its time.

To another question, Shah said a provincial governor had under the Article 130(7) of the Constitution the power to call the assembly session for the CM to get a vote of confidence from the legislature.

The objection made by the Punjab Assembly speaker on calling the session by the governor was not valid, the Sindh CM remarked. Shah advised his counterpart in Punjab to take the vote of confidence from the provincial assembly instead of going to the court of law to settle the issue related to the Punjab government. He added that the chief minister had to take a vote of confidence from the House to show that he commanded the confidence of a majority in the assembly.

Talking about the law and order situation in Karachi, the CM said that he had held a high-level meeting a day before and given clear-cut instructions to the law enforcement agencies to launch a vigorous operation against the street criminals.

He added that during the last two weeks, tragic incidents had taken place in which the citizens had lost their lives while resisting the armed muggers.

“The police have made some arrests and the killers would be brought to book at any cost,” he said and added that some of the habitual criminals had been released by the court for which he had directed his prosecutors to focus on the investigation and made strong cases against them.

To another question, Shah said that as the administrator of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, Wahab had worked hard and he did not need any official responsibility to serve the people.