As soon as a call comes in, a telecaller in the Delhi Fire Service (DFS) control room takes notes in printed form in a perforated notebook with space for name, phone number, address, nearest main road and other details. As the caller provides the information, the telecaller writes down the details with a pen in the relevant fields. As soon as the call ends, the telecaller opens a map on their phone to find the nearest fire station or relies on their memory to identify the correct station. They then move to another desk, where a man sitting with two broadcast radio sets begins calling the fire station he believes has jurisdiction over the area.
What is happening is a pen and paper execution of a life-saving emergency service – the basics of which were established in 1969 when the DFS control room was set up on Barakhamba Road. But in India’s largest city, which covers an area of more than 1,400 square kilometres—an area twice the size of any other city in the country—the system relies not on GPS, call-tracing and automated assignments, but almost entirely on diaries, registers and landlines.
More than 7,800 fire-related calls have been reported in the first four months of the year – a 20% increase over the previous year – increasing the burden on the DFS control room. Even as officials stress the need to reduce response time to prevent disasters like the deadly fires in Vivek Vihar, Palam and Hauz Rani, the 24×7 facility continues to function with only 25 telecallers, two computers and a system from 1969.
a system stabilized over time
According to DFS, 220 calls have been received every day since April. Behind these calls is a control room staffed by 25 telecallers who maintain voluminous diaries, registers and logbooks. They work in four shifts to cover all the calls.
Most calls come to 101 – the National Fire Service helpline. Some have been removed from the emergency response support system helpline 112, which is mainly used by Delhi Police.
While DFS insists that the system is robust and that telecallers efficiently route calls to the appropriate fire stations, officials acknowledge that it has flaws.
HT observed during its visit on May 11 that officials were still picking up calls, registering complaints and diverting calls entirely on pen and paper. Without GPS or digital mapping, the work is still done much as it was when the control room was established more than five decades ago.
Inside the control room, telecallers taking 101 calls use a printed, perforated receipt notebook containing sections for the caller’s name, telephone number, address, nearest main street, time and date. There is even a section asking if the caller “will be able to signal fire units from the main road”.
The telecaller tears up the slip and goes to the “broadcasting desk”, where the same person works from the 1970s, equipped with two wireless radio sets using the same high frequency network. The broadcaster then contacts the fire station by radio or telephone and relays the details.
DFS officials in the control room said that currently, they have no GPS system to track their fire tenders, get traffic details and exact location of the incident site.
Knowledge, not technology
KC Gupta, in-charge of the fire control room, said that all the telecallers are from Delhi and are familiar with the roads and sites of the city. “They memorize Delhi and its roads and give the details to the broadcaster, who has the list of fire stations and their phone numbers. The other person contacts the fire station to give details of the fire incident and send tenders,” he said.
Location-tracing remains a challenge in the absence of digital mapping. There are 71 fire stations in Delhi and telecallers have to remember which area comes under the jurisdiction of which station. Sometimes, confusion occurs, requiring discussions involving multiple officials and delaying response times.
A telecaller who has worked with DFS for a decade, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “Most of us here are working on short-term contracts. We remember the roads but sometimes there is confusion about the call. We call a fire station which tells us it is too far from the scene and then the call has to be diverted to another station. Sadly, the work is still done on paper and is very hectic.”
At the broadcast desk, once a call is made to a specific fire station, the details are noted in a diary. The punched slip is then handed over to another desk, where a daily register is maintained to keep logs and data – containing details of all fire calls, fire tenders sent, time of fire and number of casualties.
At another desk, a telecaller is tasked with keeping records of which machines and fire tenders are working or under repair – fire station officers call to report if a tender has gone for repair, or if a machine is down or there is a problem with water availability.
The many challenges of an ancient system
Another challenge is multiple calls reporting the same fire. Small incidents may generate only one or two calls, but larger fires can result in 10 to 20 calls at once.
A senior DFS official said, “The problem is not just about location tracing due to lack of GPS and technology. We have to receive 10-20 calls from different people and take each call seriously. Each caller gives different details and many do not share the nearest main road or landmark. Often, the callers go away and fire officials on the ground have to search for the spot. Fire tenders also do not have GPS. And sometimes they get stuck in traffic and we find out from the drivers much later.”
Last month, nine members of a family had died in a fire in Palam, Dwarka. Survivors and locals alleged that it took more than one and a half hours for the DFS to send a skylift to rescue the trapped people.
Officials admit that the manual system leaves room for mistakes. Another senior officer said, “Some calls are diverted to UP, some to other fire stations. Sometimes it takes five to seven minutes to ensure that the call reaches the right station. If the fire is big, we have to call nearby stations for additional tenders.”
The only exception to the analog system is the 112 helpline. Two computers in the room handle these calls, which come with GPS coordinates from the police control room, allowing staff to digitally identify the nearest fire station before relaying details to the broadcast desk.
Even when the HT was present inside the control room, the fire call from Rohini took five to seven minutes to reach the appropriate station. The broadcaster initially contacted the wrong station, then tried another station that was not responding on the radio, before eventually reaching authorities through landlines and senior officials.
DFS officials said the system remains largely unchanged since the 1960s and 1970s. Another senior fire official said, “In Mumbai and even Lucknow, they have introduced GPS-enabled calling systems with the fire services. But this is not being done yet in Delhi. Everything is still done on paper. The telecallers are well aware of the locations, but we need to upgrade our system.”
There is also no GPS tracking for DFS fire tenders, which means officers in the control room have no way of knowing whether a vehicle is headed to the right location, delayed or has already reached the spot.
Last year, DFS received about 6,500 calls till April 30. This year, the figure crossed 7,800 in the same period. A total of 36,500 calls were recorded in the entire year in 2025 while a total of 33,700 calls were reported in 2024. A total of 31,000 calls were recorded in 2023. According to Delhi government data, 543 people died in fire-related accidents from 2019 to March 2026. In the first half of 2026 alone, 65 deaths have been reported in fire accidents.
DFS handles not only fires but also house collapses, electric pole faults, fallen trees, bird rescue and other emergencies. Yet all call logs are maintained on paper registers, with no centralized digital database or software platform.
Two retired DFS officers told HT that proposals to modernize the control room have repeatedly stalled. He said the department had also sought permission to migrate from MTNL and BSNL networks to private telecom providers due to persistent connectivity problems.
A third DFS officer said, “Though Delhi Police, CATS ambulance and other departments can use private telecom networks, we still have to work with government companies. There are network issues at many fire stations. Repair work at the Nehru Place fire station is long pending and even its landline is under maintenance.”
The Principal Director’s Office said an expression of interest has been floated this year to replace and upgrade the system.
“We do not have GPS enabled fire tenders. Firstly, we have no way of knowing if the fire tender is stuck in traffic and for how long. Secondly, we also do not know when the fire tender reaches the spot and its location. This causes a slight delay. To trace the location of the caller, even digital software will need preliminary work and feed the information into the system. We have experienced telecallers here. Control rooms and tracking systems Work will be done to upgrade,” chief fire officer AK Malik told HT.
