Govt integrating emergency helplines for children, women

The government is likely to integrate the women and child helpline with the national emergency number within six months to ensure better coordination and resource utilisation, sources said.

Currently, 181 is the dedicated national number for availing of services from Women Helpline (WHL) and 1098 for Child Helpline (CHL).

The Emergency Response Support System (ERSS) - 112 - is a pan-India number for providing emergency support such as police, fire and ambulance services to citizens by tracking their location automatically.


"Once integrated, a single call will cater to children and women in need as well as anyone in an emergency situation," said a senior official at the Women and Child Development (WCD) ministry.

While 112 is operated by the ministry of home affairs through Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) with financial support from Nirbhaya Fund, 181 is operated by the WCD ministry through various state governments, and 1098 is run by NGO Childline India Foundation under the WCD ministry.

Going forward, the WCD ministry will run 1098 itself with technical support from C-DAC. Even after integration of these helplines, all the numbers will continue to exist.

"The importance of helplines can hardly be overemphasised. Thousands of children benefited from 1098, especially during Covid-19. We need to widen their outreach to areas currently not covered under them," said Shantha Sinha, the former chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights.

Under the project, a centralised control room for WHL-181 and CHL-1098 will be set up in all states and Union Territories. The total cost of setting up control rooms across 36 states and UTs is estimated at ₹195 crore. All women-and child-related calls to the common emergency number - 112 - will be pushed to the WCD control room with supporting incident data.

Similarly, calls landing at WCD control rooms that require support from emergency services will be forwarded to ERSS-112. The interoperability will not only save resources but also usher in greater efficiency.

"If the call received is from a child who needs counseling, the call will be transferred to 1098. Similarly, a woman needing support will get transferred to 181. Also, 181 and 1098 will be made technically on par with emergency number 112," said the official.