The Arvind Kejriwal Government has directed its officers to use Geo-spatial Development limited (GSDl) developed mechanism to get their MTNl office landline phones linked to their buildings so that calls made through them could be easily located and exact location spotted for prompt response at times of emergency in the national Capital.
While the Government is keen to get maximum number of its employees linked to the new tracking mechanism, the move has reportedly not gone well with a section of top bureaucrats who think that such an attempt would directly amount to the infringement of their privacy.
A senior bureaucrat said by linking the landlines to any tracking mechanism could easily risk the privacy of the officers. “The best thing would have been that the administration should have provided its officers with the tetra devises, which work without any signal during emergencies.”
Another officer said the Government had already created a WhatsApps application for its Ministers and senior officers to fast-track decision making in the city. “Same application could be used to link other Government employees during emergencies.”
In his order, Principal Secretary (Services) Rajendra Kumar said identification of the exact location where an emergency occurs was the most important step for timely response to save life and property. He said the GSDl had developed a mechanism to link landline phones of MTNl subscribers to the buildings in which they are located. “Whenever a call is made from linked landline number to the CATS Control Room (102), the exact location of caller can be identified in map and responded immediately.”
The order said, “As a first step, all MTNl landline phones located in the Government buildings and the residential phone of all Government servants of the NCT of Delhi are requested to be linked with the building in which it is located. This can be done through a web based application hosted at http://gis.gsdl.org.in//callerlocation/. The Customer Account Number, (CA Number), which is available only in the bill, will also be required to authenticate the veracity of the landline number.”