The change of short telephone numbers of emergency and reference services would be reasonable if it happened next budget year.
According to an UNIAN correspondent, Andriy Bondarenko, head of the Emergency Ministry’s Donetsk Oblast Directorate, said this to a press conference on Monday.
According to him, emergency services got to know that their telephone numbers will be changed in a matter of two weeks, from February 3 to 18, 2009, as early as on January 28.
The Ministry of Transport and Communication of Ukraine states that the change is necessary to comply with European standards. However, A.Bondarenko stressed, he had doubts whether the population will be thoroughly informed about the change within such a short period of time. Another difficulty is that, for instance, the Emergency Ministry does not have enough time and financing to change the number 01 into 101 on boards of its fire engines, in leaflets, at posters, etc.. “As of today, no budgets stipulate financing for the change”, A.Bondarenko stressed.
As UNIAN reported earlier, emergency call numbers will be added with "1" on the left to have, for example, 101 (fire service), 102 (police), 103 (ambulance), or 104 (gas service).
The number of the reference service will now be 109, information service of the interurban telephone station 170, and the new numbers inquiry service will respond to 120.
Transfer to the new system of telephone numbers was called by the need to bring it in line with the European standards, and will proceed in the course of four years.
