The capital city of Hyderabad will soon come under an electronic surveillance. Every nook and corner of the city would be under the watchful eyes of the police through closed circuit cameras. Following the directions of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao to make Hyderabad safe and secure, the city police have come with an ambitious plan “One CCTV for every two persons.” Once the project is implemented, every inch of the city would come under electronic surveillance. The city police believe that the project would prevent crimes against the citizens and would be helpful in dealing with the criminals. In a recent review, the Chief Minister directed the officials to involve private persons in the surveillance under SAFE programme.
It would cost about Rs 600 crore to Rs 700 crore for government to install 5,000 CCTVs
The State government has already sanctioned 5,000 CCTV cameras to the twin police commissionerates of Hyderabad and Cyberabad, under the Safe City project and AP Public Safety (Measures) Enforcement Act-2013. According to the Act, every commercial establishment and public place needs to install CCTV cameras to monitor the premises, parking area and also entry and exit routes. The police officials have estimated that there were 10 lakh establishments including hospitals, schools and colleges, shopping malls, theaters and other commercial establishments under Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation limits. Since the rule says that every establishment must be equipped with minimum of four CCTVs, the approximate number of CCTVs would be over 40 lakh, along with the 5,000 CCTVs installed by the twin police commissionerates.
Cops say that ensuring safety in Hyderabad would be possible, only if CCTVs were installed at all the commercial establishments and also by engaging security personnel.The Cyberabad Police Commissioner CV Anand said “The AP Public Safety (Measures) Enforcement Act certainly help police to ensure public safety. As the act says that every commercial establishment has to be equipped with CCTV cameras, city can be monitored through lakhs of cameras. With the installation of huge number of CCTVs, crime rate could be brought down and nabbing the offenders would become easier for police.”
The Commissioner said, “It would cost about Rs 600 crore to Rs 700 crore for government to install 5,000 CCTVs and to connect them to the Command Control Centers. As per the current proposal police would link up the CCTVs to the Central Command Center and would monitor the footage basing on the unique code given to each camera.”He said that the newly sanctioned vehicles for police department would have GPS system. In case of any trouble takes place, the closest patrolling vehicle would reach the spot irrespective of the police station limits and control the situation.“Despite sanction of funds by the State government, procuring the CCTVs by bidding process became a major problem for police. In Mumbai, the police officials opened the bid for CCTV cameras three times and cancelled the contracts due to the pending work of contractors. Hope we would not face such inconvenience,” Anand added.
Source: Metro india
