In the changing life styles, an integration of multiple services to provide quick and comprehensive emergency response is required. Further, with increase in the number of road traffic accidents, high rate of birth related emergencies, bomb blast and other calamities demand a centralized emergency management system. Although there are referral transports available in the health facility but their services always do not address all the medical emergencies and cater very few of the rural population. Looking at the demand for comprehensive emergency system Govt. of Assam has entered into a MoU with the GVK-EMRI, Hyderabad on 8th July, 2008. The 108 Mrityunjoy Emergency Response Services was formally inaugurated on 6th November, 2008 at Guwahati. The objective of the partnership is to improve access of the general public to services like Medical, Police and Fire. There are in total 380 ambulances covering all 27 districts. This Service has also 5 Boat Ambulances equipped with emergency medicines to respond to medical emergencies in riverine areas and during floods is one of the most unique approaches to improve response efficiency in the riverine areas of the State.

The Mrityunjoy-108 Emergency Response Services is 24 x 7 functional with dedicated team members. Dialing ‘108’ the toll free emergency number, the emergency call lands at Emergency Response Centre (ERC). From there the call is processed depending on the emergency and location of the caller and is dispatched to the Ambulance located nearest to the site of emergency.

Each Ambulance is manned by a ‘Pilot’ and an ‘Emergency Medical Technician’ (EMT) who is a trained para-medic capable of providing pre- hospital care while transporting the patient to the hospital.