Bharti Airtel Launched Emergency Alert Service for Women Subscribers

Bharti Airtel launched an emergency alert service for the subscribers in Odisha, Bengal and Kolkata on 1 February 2013. The service is directed towards the women primarily and allows them to dial the Airtel helpline number known as 55100 as well as send the messages when there is an emergency.

As soon as the number is dialed, an alert SMS will be sent across along with the recorded voice message to the already loaded 10 numbers. The message will in turn allow these 10 pre-loaded numbers to track the location of a sender along with the time.

Messages and recorded voice message will be sent across simultaneously to these ten recipients. Also, these alert messages will repeat three times within just 30 minutes.

According to Airtel, the service primarily focuses women subscribers. For first 30 days, this service will be available free of cost but then it would cost 30 Rupees per month. At present, there are 20 million subscribers of Airtel across Kolkata, Bengal and Odisha and one-third out of these are women. Airtel expects that around 10 percent of these women subscribers will opt for this service.

According to the Airtel, the company was also having negotiations with the local police in order to make sure that one single number should be introduced for the purpose of emergency calls. The alerts could be generated through this single number such as 100 to all local police stations as well.