ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan inaugurated the unified emergency helpline 911 on Thursday to facilitate the common people.
Addressing the inaugural ceremony, the prime minister said the emergency helpline is a great project, which needs support of all the federating units of the country. “Now, every citizen in any part of the country will get the state’s response (in case of any emergency). This is a major move forward towards our mission statement of making Pakistan an Islamic welfare state,” the prime minister further said.
The premier said that bringing facilitation to the lives of common people is a responsibility of the state and making Pakistan a welfare state is his vision. He added that in any welfare state, the citizens should have the confidence of receiving the state’s response in case of any threat to life and property.
He said besides being a major facility, the PEHEL helpline would also give the people a feeling that Pakistan is for all as earlier, there were two parallel discriminatory systems supporting rich and poor respectively. He also lauded the interior ministry and other collaborating departments for establishing the helpline and said that it would also require constant coordination among all provinces. “This project should have all the provinces on the same page because it was about the benefit of all,” he remarked.
The prime minister said the PEHEL helpline would also enable the government to maintain the crime data, besides assessing the requirement of resources in different sectors. He said his government launched health cards, Ehsas Programme, Kamyab Jawan Programme, and other public welfare initiatives to facilitate the people of Pakistan.
Moreover, the introduction of a legal aid system to provide free legal services to needy people was also on his government’s agenda. He said the Madina welfare state took the responsibility of all of its citizens without considering the dearth of resources. Following the same model, China also steered around 700 million people out of poverty within 35 years, he added. He said the country could not achieve progress sans inclusivity and without breaking the elite system.
It is pertinent to mention that now a caller will only have to dial 911 and it will be routed to the concerned emergency response department. At present, several emergency services with different dialing numbers are operating in Islamabad and the unified 911 service will provide the callers an integrated platform to get in touch with the relevant emergency response service for relief.
The integrated Pakistan Emergency Helpline (PEHEL)-911 would provide emergency services like fire brigade, police, health assistance, disaster recovery and motorway police etc.
