The agreement with Andhra Pradesh envisages providing 150 additional ambulances to run 108 emergency services. With this, Andhra will have a fleet of 602 ambulances servicing the entire state. In Tamil Nadu, EMRI will be launching its comprehensive emergency response services (ERS) covering police, fire and medical in the state in a phased manner.
Initially, the Tamil Nadu government will provide 198 ambulances to the organisation and the operations will begin within four months of signing the MoU.
"Besides, the Tamil Nadu government's public health and welfare department would provide land for establishment of a call centre as well as bear the expenditure on necessary equipment and material (software), equipped ambulances, running cost, human resources and amount for administrative expenditure," Venkat Changavalli, chief executive officer of EMRI, stated in a press release.
In a public-private partnership mode, the institute plans to extend the 108 ERS across the country by 2010 and save a million lives a year.
