Odisha Covid-19 helpline number flooded with prank calls

BHUBANESWAR: The state’s Covid helpline number, 104, continues to be flooded with prank calls of obscene nature made by unknown callers. Ziqitza Healthcare Limited (ZHL), which operates the health help desk, recently lodged a fresh complaint with the Saheed Nagar police here, seeking action against the pranksters.
“We had first drawn the attention of the commissionerate police to the issue in April last year. However, the problem still persists. Mischief-mongers continue to trouble our call centre executives. Their mischievous conduct has been demotivating our employees. We have lodged another complaint with the police,” ZHL’s senior vice president Sabyasachi Biswal said.
Apart from handling Covid-related queries, the ZHL’s centralized call centre here also attends to calls for ambulance services, including those for pregnant women and infants. The ZHL receives around 30,000-35,000 calls every day.
According to the dial-104 service operator, at least 10% of the total calls are fake and vulgar in nature. In the latest complaint, the company has shared 30 phone numbers, whose callers spoke in obscene language with the women staff of the call centre between January 1 and May 31 this year.
“We received fake and vulgar calls from a phone number (7205789242) 492 times at regular intervals. A person called from 9078397730 no less than 201 times. Callers from altogether 30 phone numbers made frequent calls. We have shared all these numbers with the police,” Biswal said.
The unknown callers insisted on the women call receivers sharing their personal numbers for chat, asked them to recharge their mobile phones, invited them for lunch and dinner. They hurled abuses when the women call centre executives warned them of police action.
“We not only feel irritated, but are also worried for those genuine and distressed callers, who are forced to wait in queues for several minutes because of such stupid calls,” a woman staff said.
The police, which have not arrested a single prankster since last year, said efforts are on to identify the accused.
“We appeal to people to not make such fake and unnecessary calls to the state health helpline number. We are trying to ascertain the identities of the unknown callers by tracing their mobile phones,” deputy commissioner of police Uma Shankar Dash said.
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