About 70 per cent of about 4,064 CCTV cameras installed across the city by the Delhi police are reportedly non-functional. These startling facts came to light at a recent meeting of the senior police officers where the special commissioner (operations) informed that 50 per cent of the CCTV cameras were not working because of problems with the Electronics Corporation of India Ltd, a public sector undertaking, through which these cameras had been acquired and 20 per cent others had become non-functional due to digging of roads.
A highly-placed source said that police commissioner Alok Kumar Verma has directed his officers to sort pending issues out with the ECIL on a priority basis. It was also decided at the meeting that the good work done to install CCTV cameras with the help of private persons should be continued in right earnest. Mr Verma directed the joint commissioner of the southwest region to hold a meeting with the deputy commissioners of police on a regular basis for further progress in the matter.
The CCTV cameras had been installed by the police to keep track on various activities in 56 market places, courts and check posts. There are about 1.6 lakh more cameras which have been installed by private persons in collaboration with the police under a unique community policing initiative. Besides these, a business area watch project is also in place where cameras have been installed in high value business locations, like Chandni Chowk, Darba Kalaan, as well as some markets of south Delhi in collaboration with the respective market associations. There are also about 50-monitoring stations and processes in place to enable multi use of CCTV cameras for e-challaning and e-patrolling.
A document in possession of this newspaper shows that of the total cameras, 78 are in the Supreme Court, 35 in the Delhi high court, 440 in five district courts, 42 in V.P. House, 35 in Raj Niwas and 21 in Union home minister’s residence. The CCTV cameras were installed in the city under a pilot project. As per the project details, 56 cameras at the cost of Rs 6.56 crore were installed in Vasant Vihar and Ghazipur.
