Chandigarh fixes charges for pvt, Red Cross ambulances

Tribune News Service

Naina Mishra

Chandigarh, March 17

The Chandigarh Administration has fixed charges for ambulance service within and outside the UT.

The Administration decided that the National Ambulance Service-112 will continue to provide free service within the UT. However, in case all six ambulances are occupied, the ambulance of UT Red Cross Society may be provided, for which the Health Department, UT, will make a payment of Rs 300 per trip.

Rates for Service

Rs 300 per trip for service in tricity

Rs 10 per km for plain areas outside tricity

Rs 12 per km for service in hilly region

For ambulance service outside the city, the UT Red Cross Society, NGOs and private ambulance operators have been brought on board on an experimental basis. Their contact details will be made available to 112 operators in the Police Control Room to facilitate paid ambulance service.

The charges will be uniform for all service providers. The charge will be Rs 300 per trip within the tricity and for outside trips, Rs 10 per km will be charged for plain areas and Rs 12 per km for hilly areas.

Any complaint of overcharging or misbehaviour against ambulance operators could be lodged by on ‘112’, which will be passed on to the Director of Health & Family Welfare at the GMSH-16 for necessary action.

The move is expected to bring in transparency and uniformity in ambulance service charges and prevent fleecing by ambulance operators.

Chandigarh has six basic life support ambulances that are operated through the National Ambulance Service. These ambulances shift patients from their location to any government health care facility in the city. When a call is received on ‘112’, a computer operator from the Health Department refers it to the ambulance stationed closest to the location of the caller or the site of the incident. All ambulances are GPS-enabled for real-time tracking. The average response time is 15 minutes.