Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Feb 5: The city came under camera surveillance Thursday with the launch of the CCTV surveillance system at the police control room (PCR) of the commissionerate police.
“The system would enable the state in maintaining law and order in a more systematic way,” said Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, while inaugurating the system.
The system will enable the 114 cameras installed at the 28 traffic junctions across the city to send live feed to the PCR and thus help better policing and traffic regulation.
Among the locations where the CCTVs have been installed are Secretariat Road and Governor’s house. Other junctions include Rajamahal, Kalpana, Power House Chhak, Airport Square, Sishu Bhawan and CRP.
However, the commissionerate police did not reveal the complete list of locations where the cameras have been installed.
The project, which has cost the government around `10 crore, according to police commissioner Rajendra Prasad Sharma, will be operated on a public-private mode. “In the second and third phase of implementation, CCTVs will be extended to 90 locations across the city,” said Sharma.
As many as 33 PCR vans that have also been equipped with cameras which will be moving around the city 24 hours and sending live feed to the control room.
In case the control room spots any illegal incident while monitoring CCTV system, it will tip-off the nearest PCR van to reach the spot of occurrence. The PCR vans will use their GPRS system to reach the spot. “The control room will keep the data for a month before erasing the files,” said Bishnu Mishra, assistant commissioner of police.
At present, around 10 staff will be monitoring the surveillance system at PCR, who were sent for training to states like Delhi and Hyderabad to understand the system’s functioning. Another batch, which is undergoing training, will join them soon.
Of the 114 cameras installed at present, 101 are fixed ones while the rest are PTZ (pan, tilt and zoom) cameras that can focus on the number plates of vehicles. Such cameras will have 360 views of its surrounding.
“At present, we have only one command center at the Commissionerate, which will analyze all the data. We would like to decentralize it in coming days, wherein inspectors-incharge of police stations will be able to monitor the system and even a constable would be able to log in and operate it,” said Prasad.
The commissioner also said that it would like to have the resident welfare associations (RWAs) and market complexes coming forward and install their own cameras for better policing in the city.
