Trying to understand the status of ECS in Utsav

1. The ECS system has served a couple of residents on occasion. However there have been instances when a resident used one of the emergency switches in their flat but no one responded. That person somehow coped with their emergency on their own.
2. A maintenance contract appears to have been paid by VML to the same Pune Agency which installed the system, every year since 2008. It is not clear what services the agency provides against the lakhs paid under the contract, as many people with faulty systems report that the agency is unable to repair them. 



The Agency sent a single individual from Pune to attend to these systems in 2011 who appeared to have little more training than the society electrician. That individual stayed put in Utsav for only a few weeks in 2011, although rs. 2 lakhs was paid. In his absence, the Utsav electricians seemed to repair or not repair the system to the same extent as this individual. 
3. The yearly contract payments seem to cover all 640 flats, even though the system is not even commissioned in more than half the flats - as it needs a working intercom to be made functional. The families who dont stay here (more than half of Utsav) have, understandably not taken MTS landline connection/s, on which the intercom system is based.  
4. The agency has not submitted a SINGLE report (as per mails from the Association to all residents) about the status of the system in Utsav - in how many flats is it working ? What is to be done to restore functionality in all flats ? So even at that rudimentary level, it is not clear what it is that Utsavites have received in return for the lakhs paid every year. 
5. AUOWS wrote to VML in 2011, and informed Utsavites, that it had asked for further contracts with this agency not to be renewed.
6. Atleast in our understanding, non-renewal of AMC with this agency should not affect the flats where the ECS system happens to be working : 
1. The hardware - switches, cords, gas sensor, intercom wiring etc. have been paid for in the cost of the flat, so cannot be taken away. When they go out of order, the agency or VML staff also, charge Utsavites Rs. 750 for the gas censor replacement, Rs. 300 for the bathroom cord, and Rs. 250 for the emergency switch. So these repairs are hopefully not affected by the stopping of the contract, atleast by VML electricians whose salaries we pay separately. 
2. The system when it works, sounds an alarm at the computer at the control room, and the flat no. from which the alarm has been rung, is flashed. This system too has been paid for when we all bought our flats.


The control room is manned by 9 - yes NINE staff over a cycle of 24 hours : Asssitant Estate Manager, Control Room Supervisor - Day,  Control Room Supervisor - Night, 3 Electricians, 1 Plumber, 1 Mason, 1 Mailboy. These staff are all paid for via our maintenance payments, SEPARATE from AMCs given for ECS, and other contracts. 
7. It is another matter that during experiments conducted by vigilant Utsavites last year, even when their flat no. flashed in the control room, no one called them back or enquired with them what was wrong. The non-hearing of the alarm at the control room happened not over a single day but over weeks when different people tried out the systems at their flats.  Complaints were made, but all VML did / said was that no one in the Control Room witnessed any alarm from the concerned flats. 
8. It was left to Utsav volunteers to try to find out what was happening. They found that the pressing of an emergency switch in a flat was supposed to result in the ringing of a corresponding alarm in the control room, thus drawing attention of the staff to a possible emergency. This alarm was not heard by staff as the volume button of the computer in which the alarm rang, was turned to 'off'. At last external speakers, with the volume turned high, were attached by VML staff to the computer and put up high on the wall so the volume could not be turned down again. 
9. Even when the alarm has been heard at the control room, the concerned staff member needs training to act fast. In real life situations, on occasion, help has arrived at the concerned flat in 10-15 minutes. Sometimes the organizing of the ambulance with driver, has taken still more time. One time in 2011 it took so long that the patient had to be taken to a hospital by a neighbour. Since then, VML claim to have trained staff better and improved response time. 
10. Even with the ambulance on its way, the driver has to know the routes to various hospitals. This was not entirely so, and again, volunteers took it upon themselves to check and show driver/s the routes in 2012. 
11. Even when the ambulance successfully reaches the hospital, the response time at small bhiwadi hospitals can be so slow that the emergency is prolonged. In one such emergency, the medical centre nurse had not called ahead to the hospital concerned, even though she had asked for the patient to be taken there. So when the patient reached in the dead of the night, staff at the hospital were asleep and more precious minutes were lost in trying to wake them up ! Again, it took efforts from the AUOWS medical sub-committee and volunteers to develop, with Medical Centre / Care Home staff, a faster response system that tried to address these loopholes.
12. Regardless of ECS, all flats can have, on a monthly payment of Rs. 66 or so, a working MTS phone line / intercom, which connects them to the Control Room, the Utsav Gate and the Medical centre / Care home, etc. About 15 important intercom nos. have been printed by AUOWS on a slip just large enough to fit on your receiver or phone instrument. Copies have been distributed to all occupied flats last year and have been given at the control room for newcomers to the Campus.