New Delhi, Jun 20 (PTI) Child helpline 1098, which is being integrated with the Emergency Response Support System 112 (ERSS-112), will be operated directly by state and district functionaries in nine states and Union Territories from the next month, a senior official said Tuesday.

These nine states and Union Territories are - Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Puducherry, Goa, Dadra Nagar Haveli and Daman &Diu, Mizoram, Gujarat and Bihar.

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The official said the government has taken a decision to integrate Child Helpline 1098 with ERSS-112 for all emergency cases so that immediate help can be provided to children in distress.

"The transition of the Child Helpline is in progress. The integrated helpline will be run by state and district functionaries in nine states and UTs from next month. The other states/UTs will also be on-boarded in a phased wise manner," the official said.

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Earlier, around 1,500 NGOs were looking after the childline 1098 but now it will be operated directly by the state and district functionaries, the official added.

Earlier, the ministry was supporting 24x7 helpline Childline 1098 service, through Childline India Foundation (CIF) and its partner NGOs.

The CIF is rendering childline services in 568 districts, 135 railway stations and 11 bus stands through its network of 1000+ units, taking 60 minutes to respond to children's distress calls.

"The current system, however, lacks interoperability with other services like police, fire, ambulance which leads to loss of precious time in distress situations. Therefore, the government has taken a decision to integrate Child Helpline with ERSS-112 for all emergency cases so that immediate help can be provided to children in distress condition," the official said.

Now, according to the new SOPs, the incoming calls to 1098 will be classified into three categories - Emergency calls, Non-Emergency calls and Information calls, the Women and Child Development (WCD) Department official added.

All emergency calls on the switch of a button call can be switched to either 112 or 1098 shall be forwarded by the WCD-control room to ERSS-112 for further actions.

Non-emergency calls may be transferred to respective child helpline (CHL) units at district child protection units and information calls will be handled at WCD CR itself or may be transferred to CHL Units of DCPUs for providing information to the caller. All calls on 1098 will land on the WCD-CR of Child helpline in respective States/UTs and emergency calls will be forwarded to ERSS-112 of MHA.

After the technical integration, the calls can be switched to either 112 or 1098 on the switch of a button, the official explained.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)