Austin-Hyderabad Connection.

A news item, under the headline - City Of Austin - EMRI ink pact - in the Sunday edition of THE HINDU, dated March 2^nd, 2008, caught my attention, and gave me a little pleasure. It read as follows:

City of Austin in Texas in the United States Of America and one of the best performers in running the ‘911’ emergency, on Saturday became a strategic partner with ‘108’, the service run by the Emergency Management Research Institute (EMRI).

An MoU to this effect was signed by Pete Collins, Chief Information Officer in the City Of Austin and Venkat Changavalli, CEO, EMRI at a function here. Under the MoU, the Combined Transportation Emergency & Communication Centre (CTECC) that runs ‘911’ in Austin and EMRI will share knowledge and processes for better emergency management.

Mr. Collins described the CTECC in Austin as a centre where the police, fire, and emergency management technicians worked together in a facility spread over 80,000 square feet. CTECC has as partners, the city of Austin, Travis county, Texas Department of Transportation and the Capital Metro Transit Agency, he said.

In his presentation, Mr. Venkat Changavalli said ‘108’ had saved 25,000 lives after attending to 6 lakh emergencies since August 1, 2005.It had recently started operation in Gujarat with 80 ambulances and would, in a week, sign up to offer services in Uttarkhand, he said, going on to add that by the end of December, 2008, EMRI would have covered four states with 3,000ambulances.

I am aware of this service getting popular in Hyderabad, though I did not get an occasion to use it. I did see their ambulances speeding on the roads in the congested undisciplined traffic of Hyderabad. I must confess that majority of the motorists driving in Hyderabad, do not follow traffic rules. Very often, there are traffic jams. One does require patience and skills to get through the traffic snarls. I always wondered how these ambulances wade through these traffic jungles.

Be that as it may, the news item did give me a tingling sensation that Austin is connected with Hyderabad!

I do look forward to the day when there are direct flights to Austin from Hyderabad. It would augur well for both the cities, in terms of business opportunities and making friends.