What 108 handles
- Critical care emergencies
- Trauma
- Road accident victims
- Other emergency response transport
NHM states 35 States/UTs have the facility where people can dial 108 or 102 for an ambulance. NHM funds the operational cost; the ambulances themselves are run by your State or UT, so the fleet, response time and control room are state-level.
If the call does not resolve it
- Dial 102 instead for maternal and child transport
NHM states Dial 102 is basic patient transport aimed at the needs of pregnant women and children — free transfer from home to facility, inter-facility transfer on referral, and drop back for mother and child under JSSK.
- State health grievance helpline
NHM publishes "Guidelines for Establishing Grievance Redressal and Health Helpline" for states; complaints about an ambulance go to your state's health helpline.
How AI voice agents help 108
A 108 call has almost no information-retrieval in it; it is triage plus an address. Because the service is state-run with the fleet funded under NHM, the automatable part is the same in every state: capture the location and the nature of the emergency, decide whether the caller actually needs 108 or 102, and hand a structured record to the control room — which is exactly the surge that swamps state ambulance control rooms during festivals, accidents and heat waves.
Frequently asked questions
Is the 108 ambulance free?
Yes. The National Health Mission states that the services through these ambulances are provided free of cost to the beneficiaries.
What is the difference between 108 and 102?
NHM states Dial 108 is predominantly an emergency response system, primarily designed to attend to patients of critical care, trauma and accident victims. Dial 102 services essentially consist of basic patient transport aimed at the needs of pregnant women and children, though other categories are not excluded.
Is 108 available in my state?
NHM states that 35 States/UTs now have the facility where people can dial 108 or 102 for an ambulance. The service is run by your State or UT with operational cost supported under NHM.
What kind of ambulances answer a 108 call?
NHM reports the fleet supported under NHM as 3,044 Advanced Life Support, 15,283 Basic Life Support, 3,918 Patient Transport Vehicles, 19 boats and 81 bikes, plus 6,485 empanelled vehicles used in some states for transporting pregnant women and children.
Sources
Everything above was read off these pages on 17 September 2026.