COVID-19: Incoming calls at call centre of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation cross 1 lakh mark

Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], June 26 : Reaching yet another milestone in serving the people of Odisha impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 1929 24X7 City Call Centre at the Bhubaneswar Operations Centre of the Smart City office has received more than one lakh incoming calls. Till the end of yesterday, the call centre received 1,01,074 incoming calls.
Chief Executive Officer of the Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited and Commissioner Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, Sanjay Kumar Singh said, "Incoming calls surpassing the one lakh mark is proof that people are getting benefits of the services provided by our Call Centre. We must continue the spirit to serve the people with more focus and providing timely help.''
As per the official release, the incoming calls to the 24X7 City Call Centre to help the COVID-19 pandemic affected citizens, mainly include queries on different tests of Coronavirus positive and negative reports, consultation with doctors, shifting of patients to hospitals, home isolation patients and their issues, queries on the visits of rapid response teams (RRTs) and distribution of medicines to the home isolation patients, testing for special categories at their doorsteps and of late, more and more calls on vaccination.
With the citizens realizing the importance of vaccination to fight the COVID-19 pandemic the queries on taking the jabs have gone up and people are making calls for registration of vaccination for senior citizens who want to vail the service through the pick and drop facility of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) at three special centres, one each in each administrative zone, immobile and bed-ridden patients for home vaccination, vaccination for physically challenged persons. Students going abroad for higher studies are also making calls for a special drive by BMC to provide them vaccination. People going for general slot booking through COWIN App are also calling 1929 to clear their doubts.
As the civic authorities have started the supply of oxygen concentrators for citizens of the State Capital many calls are also based on the basic query on how to get the service, how to apply and whom to contact etc.
Other important incoming calls also include the issue of discharge certificates for those, who complete home isolation and want to join their work. As the Zonal Deputy Commissioners of the respective three administrative zones of the BMC are issuing the discharge certificates, calls are coming to 1929 Call Centre for seeking the basic information.
Many incoming calls are also to know about the cremation process as the urban local body is authorized to cremate the bodies with full COVID-19 protocol. After receiving the information from the callers on the death the executives are also passing on the information to the designated officials of BMC in order to make the process smooth and quick. Many queries are also on the issue of the death certificates for the deceased as the family members for their official and family matters want to have the death certificate from BMC at the earliest. With e-Municipality application, however the certificate is delivered online.
Apart from all the types of incoming calls coming to the 1929 24X7 Call Centre, more than 30 percent are for doctors' consultation. Many COVID positive, those under Home Isolation, patients wanting to shift to hospitals mainly want to have doctors' consultation and the doctors on the shift provide all help with patience. In fact, the counselling by the doctors is divided into two types, i.e. medicine consultation and psychological counselling. It is an important achievement to have 32,334 incoming calls being referred to doctors' consultation by the day ending yesterday.
Apart from the doctors, 48 executives are working in three shifts in different groups to handle both the incoming and outgoing calls at the facility. The Call Centre works in three shifts, i.e. 6 am to 2 pm, 2 pm to 10 pm and between 10 pm and 6 am respectively. The calls are managed through 35 work stations. While 15 are used for receiving incoming calls and 5 for outgoing ones, 8 are used by doctors to give consultation.
The 1929 24X7 Call Centre, which started functioning from March 25 this year when the "Corona graph" was not so alarming, had only two work stations then, one for incoming and another for outgoing. However, with the increase in the frequency of calls, the number of work stations got increased with periodic review of the demand and call frequency rates.