Madhya Pradesh's 108 Helpline Is Dying A Slow Death - Choked By Abuse, Ignored By The System

Dial 108 - and you're supposed to get an ambulance at your doorstep. For someone who's been in an accident, suffered a cardiac arrest, or is clinging to life in some faraway village, this number is the lifeline. But in Madhya Pradesh, this emergency helpline has been turned into a joke - and that joke is costing lives.

Every hour, at least 200 fake calls flood the state's 108 call centers. People calling not to save lives - but to ask for liquor deliveries, demand mobile recharges, inquire about ration kits, or simply hurl abuses at the female operators who answer the phones. Some are so persistent, they call a thousand times from the same number, as if rehearsing for a comedy sketch rather than confronting a healthcare crisis.

A woman's voice from the call center says it all: "Sir, I'm sorry... recharge service is not available here. If you need 108 emergency service, please tell me..."

That phrase is repeated so often it has become routine - as if the abuse is now just part of the job.

Between April and June 2025, over 4 lakh fake or nuisance calls were recorded. These aren't isolated incidents. In April alone, there were 1.45 lakh fake calls. May brought 1.32 lakh, and June saw another 1.20 lakh. That's an average of 4,400 bogus calls every single day. Calls that jam the lines. Calls that block access to people who are actually dying. "These are not just interruptions. They're potential death sentences," says Tarun Parihar, Senior Manager of the 108 Emergency Response Center. "Many calls are silent. Some are vulgar. And mornings are the worst - when more women are on duty, the volume of abusive calls increases."

Fake calls don't just waste time - they cut into "Platinum Ten Minutes", the golden window for saving lives in trauma cases. One blocked line for ten seconds may seem like nothing. But stack that across 4 lakh calls, and that's 310 hours - or more than 13 days - where real patients in real emergencies were left listening to a busy tone. Dr. Prabhakar Tiwari, Senior Joint Director at the National Health Mission, calls these delays, dangerous. "Ambulances are the first responders. If they arrive even a minute late in trauma cases, it can prove fatal. The system depends on speed, not stupidity."

But while cities are dealing with pranksters and perverts clogging the lines, villages are staging entirely different dramas - because they've lost faith that anyone is listening at all.

A Village Where Labour Pains Were Faked - To Wake the System Up

In Saliwada, a small village in Seoni's Ghansaur block, the monsoon had washed away the road, and with it, the last remaining thread of public faith in the administration. Years of complaints, memos, and petitions yielded nothing. The approach road was still a slush-filled hazard. The drainage project, which began in 2019, remained unfinished. The nearest ambulance couldn't reach them - not because of a prank, but because of state apathy. So the villagers took matters into their own hands. They faked a medical emergency. A call was placed to the 108 helpline reporting a pregnant woman in labour. It was urgent, the caller insisted. The health department responded immediately and sent an ambulance. But when the vehicle reached the village outskirts, it was met with a flooded, broken road and a nalla that couldn't be crossed. The health team called the villagers: "Please bring the woman across. We can't reach you."

And the villagers replied: "There is no woman in labour. But there is a village in pain - and no one's listening."

The next day, once the water level dropped, the team trekked into the village. That's when the full extent of the performance became clear. The so-called delivery was a deliberate drama, staged to expose just how far removed the system had become from reality. "We didn't know what else to do," a villager told NDTV.

"We were not mocking the system. We were mourning its absence." Rajaram Raikwar, the local health officer, says no action was taken against the villagers. "We understood their frustration. Their problems are genuine."

This isn't just about prank calls. It's about the deep cracks in a system meant to protect people at their most vulnerable. In cities, the public is misusing the system. In villages, they've stopped expecting anything from it. Both realities are damning. 108 is not a radio station. It's not a chat line. And it's certainly not for recharges or liquor orders. It is the difference between life and death.