Dikhyaa Mohanty 
The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has commenced GPS tracking of ambulances for more beneficial COVID management and instantaneous shift of patients to the COVID hospitals (DCH) and COVID care centres (CCC).
According to the official report, under the COVID management programme, Bhubaneswar authorities have a flotilla of 64 ambulances and out of which 40 have now become GPS-enabled. The rest ambulances will be implemented with the tracking devices in the coming days.
Bhubaneswar Smart City Ltd (BSCL) is watching after the technological up-gradation part of the emergency vehicles interested in COVID duty.
The report further elaborates that when a patient is concerned about shifting to a DCH or CCC after due teleconsultation at BMC COVID Care 24×7 Helpline 1929, which operates from the Smart City office, BMC allocates a bed in one of the COVID hospitals or CCC. And an ambulance is then alerted to pick up the patient from his/her residence.
The upgraded ambulances are fitted with onboard GPS units for real-time tracking. This provides an estimated time of arrival of the ambulance to the patient’s residence, just like we get to know the location of a taxi when we book through various Apps on our mobile phones which provide taxi rental services.
Out of the 64 ambulances, 3 each are with 3 administrative zones under BMC. This number will be increased by 7 in each zone, making 10 ambulances available at each zone under the zonal control room for ambulance operation.
Presently there is an ORS officer, one ASO and one DEO to coordinate ambulance availability at the zonal level under BMC.
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