Efforts to install GPS in EMRI vans fail,authorities to try customising system

He added,“We are trying to customise this system as per our requirements.”

Range Forest Officer H S Patel said that there have been instances when ambulances were used for illegal transport of forest produce from one place to another.

An official from Chhota Udepur area added that EMRI vans were misused during the Lok Sabha elections as well.

Rubbishing these claims,Vadodara district manager of the service,Dhruv Joshi,said that there is nothing to substantiate these allegations. “Few months ago,allegations were made in Panchmahals about the misuse of the EMRI service,but these were never substantiated. We manually keep track of every vehicle every hour,” Joshi said.

EMRI Marketing Operations head Manan Dave spoke in the same vein and said “there could be a few lapses here and there,but there have been no major reports about misuse of vehicles”.

“Already,we are trying to customise the GPS. The information that is loaded manually by our staff will be automised. Next week,two private companies from Bangalore and Mumbai are expected to give us presentations about customising the GPS as per our needs. We want the position of our vehicles in three time slots: when the ambulance picks up the patient,when the patient is taken to the hospital,and when the ambulance returns to the EMRI office,” said Patel.