Back in February, Jakarta Governor “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama promised to launch a universal hotline for residents to request emergency services ranging from the police to ambulances to firefighters, replacing the numerous separate hotlines used by each emergency service provider. We hadn’t heard any updates about Ahok’s promised “112” hotline since then, but that’s apparently because plans have been developed to roll out the service throughout the country.
Today, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Kemkominfo), in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs (Kemendagri), announced their plans to launch the 112 emergency hotline at the national level.
“This service will be launched in 104 regions and cities throughout Indonesia,” said Minister of Communications and Information Technology Rudiantara at a press conference today as quoted by Tempo.
Rudiantara said the hotline will be integrated with a wide range of services, including police, medical personnel, ambulances, firefighters, and the National Search and Rescue Agency. He also said that anybody could call the service at any time, even if they were on limited networks or did not have phone credit as calls to 112 would not be charged.
Kemkominfo and Kemendagri are still investigating the best way and best partners to work with to create the infrastructure for the new hotline, although he mentioned that an Emergency Response Team System would be created that would field all calls and then forward the requests to the appropriate agencies. Rudiantara also said they were creating a system to prevent and punish callers that try to submit false information.
The IT Minister did not say when and in what areas the hotline would first be launched, but said he hoped that it would be fully implemented throughout Indonesia by 2019.
