Few takers of PPP scheme in Sangam city

* Two police ambulances are not enough to cater the need of accident victims
* Only two educational institutes, volunteers of civil defence and crime prevention committee offering a helping hand
Allahabad: Ravi Singh still remembers the day when he was brought to a city hospital for treatment after meeting a fatal accident on Allahabad-Kanpur highway.Two months later, he never forgot to pay thanks to authorities of an educational institute who immediately dispatched an ambulance to take him to the hospital where doctors managed to save his life.
Here, Ravi finds himself lucky as hundreds of people die in road mishaps after they fail to get medical services in the golden hour. In fact, there are few takers of PPP (private public partnership) scheme in Sangam city who are offering a helping hand to men-in-khaki as far as offering immediate medical services to accident victims are concerned.
Police authorities claim "till date, authorities of two educational institutes, Allahabad Medical Association (AMA), volunteers of Civil Defence and Crime Prevention Committee are offering a helping hand to police under the PPP scheme". Officials admitted that despite repeated requests and appeals, the khaki clad have failed to get the favourable response from masses.
Analysing the fact that medical assistance should be immediately provided to accident victims during golden hours, a concept of Private Public Partnership, known as PPP was introduced by the police authorities during March last year, thereby appealing masses, especially the elite class, to offer immediate medical relief to victims.
The department received a jolt when hardly four organisations came forward to render their services despite the fact that almost two-three accidents occur in the city and adjoining areas every day.
The objective of the scheme, to reduce the graph of road accident deaths, has also failed. However, senior cops claim that they have been making sincere efforts to promote the PPP scheme among the masses.
"When accidents occur, the first one hour known as golden hour, is crucial period for victims and they should be immediately provided with medical assistance," said Dr VB Singh adding that "if we are successful in this regard, lives of accident victims could be saved."
But the flip side of the story is that when police officials highlighted these facts before masses, only four organisations responded to offer help under the PPP scheme.
Superintendent of police, traffic, Uday Shankar Jaiswal admitted that "there are few takers of the scheme but department is making efforts to promote the scheme".
The top state cops had last year stressed to establish communication with NGOs\trusts\other organisations and industrial units to arrange ambulances at accident prone areas (black spots) in the district claiming that this would help to provide immediate relief to victims.
Between January 1 and May 31 this year, over 158 cases of fatal and non fatal accidents were reported in the city alone in which 81 persons were killed and 133 sustained injuries.
As far as availability of police vans are concerned, the department has two ambulances for taking victims to hospitals. While one ambulance is parked at Sarayinayat police station, another one is stationed at reserve police line.
One police official pointed that "if we would be able to get more ambulances, these ambulances would be deployed at black spots. The city has almost 27 accident prone areas."
Besides, these ambulances would be equipped with trained para-medical staff, life saving equipments, first aid boxes and required medicines.
Steps To Promote Private Public Partnership (PPP) Scheme
* Police officials encouraging masses to come forward to help accident victims during golden hour to save their lives
* Police establishing communication with NGOs\trusts\other organisations and industrial units to arrange ambulances at accident prone areas (black spots) to rush accident victims
* Road accident deaths are almost double the number of murders, forcing senior cops to chalk out strategies to check accident graph
* Police seeking help of nursing homes\hospitals to offer immediate medical help to victims.
* Regular meetings between elite class people and police officials to discuss the strategies
* Help of villagers being sought to intimate concerned police stations so that victims could be rushed to nearby hospitals at the earliest.