Bhubaneswar, September 8: The one-stop solution for the citizens of the Temple City, “1929 Bhubaneswar Helpline,” has gone 24X7 once again from Monday with 30 call centre executives managing the centre at the Bhubaneswar Operations Centre of the Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL).
This dedicated 24×7 helpline is a collaborative effort of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC), BSCL and Bhubaneswar Development Authority to help citizens during the pandemic. The call centre executives are now work in three shifts right from 8 am to 2 pm, 2 pm to 10 pm and in the night shift, respectively.
Earlier, the helpline was operating from March 19 to June 28 on three shifts but then there were only incoming calls to manage. However, during June 29 to July 15 the call centre was not operational with a drastic drop in positive cases and the executives were shifted to BMC COVID Control Room.
From July 16, the 1929 Call Centre started working in two shifts and has managed to handle 30,643 outgoing calls and 2,533 incoming calls till September 6 to assist people facing difficulties due to the Novel Corona virus disease. In each shift five persons were working as the COVID-19 cases were low.
However, BMC Commissioner Prem Chandra Chaudhary decided to start the “1929 Bhubaneswar Helpline” in the 24×7 mode again from September 7, with a major spike in the positive cases.
The helpline will handle all queries related to COVID-19 pandemic and information service, counselling by trained psychologists and psychiatric social worker, medical and health advice and grievance redressal.
“It will greatly help as a one-stop solution for citizens of the State Capital for all COVID-19 related queries,” said BMC Additional Commissioner Parul Patawari.
The psycho-social counselling at the “1929 Call Centre” started on August 29 as majority of the people in home isolation started contacting the call centre. The patients are no longer anxious, stressed and fearful about the disease, thanks to the initiatives by two clinical psychologists and one psychiatric social worker. These three counsellors from Capital Hospital Bhubaneswar are deputed by the Health and Family Welfare Department.
