When Smriti Roy Chowdhury saw two intruders trying to scale the wall of her Lake Gardens home recently, she dialled the emergency line of the city police headquarters around midnight. But, instead of being allowed to lodge a complaint immediately, she was greeted by a computerised message that sought from her the ?desired? extension number.

For what seemed infinity, the woman in her 40s was taken through the twists and turns of the electronic message. It ended with the strains of the National Anthem. But without her being able to establish contact with the police.

Finally, in exasperation, she banged the phone down, by which time the two men had disappeared.

There was nobody else at home and she spent a sleepless night. Next day, she called up the police control room and expressed her displeasure, saying an emergency helpline should ensure instant contact with the cops.

Reaching police over the phone has become a tougher job than it was six months ago. Now, it takes at least half a minute to reach the telephone operators at the Lalbazar headquarters. A caller, who is possibly desperate, has to put up with the computerised welcome messages in Bengali and English. Then, he or she is asked to press the desired extension number. If it is not known, the computerised voice asks callers to wait for operator assistance.

The system then starts playing the National Anthem till the operator obliges.

?Earlier, seeking help from the operators and reaching a policeman used to take less than five seconds,? said a senior officer at Lalbazar, admitting that such a system should not have been installed with an emergency telephone number.

The new system was installed six months ago. ?Earlier, we used to receive all calls. But now, we receive calls only when a caller does not know the extension number he or she is looking for,? said an operator.

An officer of the detective department commented: ?Some times, even 30 seconds can be vital when armed gangsters have raided your apartment, and you are desperately trying to contact the police.?