Much needed CCTVC surveillance project in the city slow paced

Visakhapatnam: A project under the Smart City initiative intended to equip the Vizag City Police with proper CCTVC surveillance is moving at a snail’s pace.

According to the Police and the GVMC officials, 500 CCTV Cameras were to be installed covering all the vital locations of the city and the gadgets were to be integrated with the Command Control Centres by March end.

The GVMC Smart City officials now say that the process of integration of all the cameras might take about two months more.

“We have completed the installation of 98 per cent of the cameras. However, integration of these cameras with the network would take one or two months. May be by mid-June it would be completed,” said G Anand Rao, Manager, Greater Visakhapatnam Smart City Corporation.

In response to a TOI report on March 14 that only three CCTVs under the Police surveillance network were operational in the city, the police commissioner T Yoganand had stated that measures were on to install the 500 cameras by March end.

Even the GVMC officials had committed to that deadline then. “But the setting up of the poles etc took some time. We expect to finish everything at the earliest,” said V Sudhakar, executive engineer, GVMC.

However, the officials claim that about 150 cameras mounted at 30 locations were already commissioned and integrated with the new state of the art Command Control Centre at GVMC inaugurated by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu on February 26.

But the feed from these 150 cameras is not accessible at the Commissionerate Command Control as of now. “Our project covers the revamping and integrating work at the Police command control too. Once we finish a bit of work pending there, the footage of these 150 cameras already operational can be accessed from there too. Till then, if the Police want they can monitor the footage at GVMC,”Anand says.

GFX

The Smart City project of the 500 CCTVs envisages primary connectivity to the GVMC-Command Control for civic upkeep and a parallel, secondary connectivity to the Police Commissionerate’s Command Control for Law and Order maintenance

Of the 500 cameras, 400 would be static i.e., set in one angle and 100 other would be PTZ – Pan Tilt Zoom Cameras

The 500 cameras are planned at 80 locations of the city with around 5 cameras at each junction

150 cameras at 30 locations presently operational

The Rs 179 crore project is being executed by the L&T and Fluentgrid consortium and includes five years of operations and maintenance

GVMC officials had earlier committed March end as the target for all the installation and also integration of the CCTVCs to the Command Control

A refurbished video wall with round the clock observers is being installed at the Police Command Control

City Police Commissioner T Yoganand said that another 1648 CCTVCs are planned to be installed soon with funds from the state government