Senior Superintendent of Police C.S.R. Reddy expects the identification system to foil the "fun" of mischief-makers who waste policemen's time with false calls. Roughly, one out of every four calls received in the control room is false.

Said an officer in the control room: "These fake callers do not realise the kind of panic and disturbance their calls can create. PCR men are rushed to the spot, police from the nearest police station are summoned and sometimes even bomb squads and dog squads scramble in response to these bogus calls."

The control room gets anonymous calls about accidents, blaring loudspeakers and quarrels with monotonous regularity. The officer observed: "Some people use the number 100 to teach their kids how to dial a telephone. It's all very irritating, Now, mercifully it will all stop."

In fact, giving false information is an offence and the caller can be hauled up for this, said a police official. Over the past several months, the Departments of Police and Telecom have been working out practical difficulties that stood in the way of installing the facility. "One of the problems was that the exchange, in which the police headquarters is located, has no access to the caller identification system facility," said Principal General Manager, Telecom, Prithipal Singh. "But now that has been sorted out. We shall be linking the phones on 100 to the exchange having this facility."

For this, the Police Control Room will be required to buy five caller line identification systems, which cost around Rs 1,000 each. The Police Control Room has five lines at telephone number 100.

There is also a proposal to install printers which will enable the Control Room to have the printouts of all the calls received. Each printer will cost less than Rs 20,000, said the officials.

The Control Room already has a dual-deck recording system in which the calls to the control room are recorded round-the-clock."The purpose is to ensure that no call is ignored," said SSP Reddy. "This serves a dual function: the recorded call can be used as an evidence if need be and it keeps a tab on employees, encouraging them to be polite and responsive in their conversation and action."