Telangana mulls installing one lakh CCTV cameras

The Telangana government is examining a proposal to instal one lakh CCTV cameras at a total cost of Rs 959 crore in two years, the state Legislative Assembly was informed today. "As a part of the citywide CCTV system, the government will set up 10,000 CCTV cameras in all sensitive and hyper-sensitive areas, at all input junctions while about 90,000 cameras are expected to be set up under Community CCTV Project as per the Provisions of Public Safety Measures Enforcement Act," Home Minister Nayani Narasimha Reddy said in his reply. The one lakh CCTV cameras will be connected to the Command Control Centres at police station level, Zonal DCP office and Centralised Main Command Control Centre at Banjara Hills in the city, he said. The data in the CCTV cameras will be stored for 30 days and analysed at the Command Control Centre. Any offender entering Hyderabad will be identified with the help of CCTV Surveillance System immediately, Reddy said. "For this, a 24-storied Command Control Centre at Road No.12, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad is planned for construction to act as Technology Fusion Centre which will be helpful for all the government departments, including the police," Reddy said. The project cost of City Wide CCTV System is Rs 657 crore and the project cost of the Command Control Centre is Rs 302 crore (total RS 959 crore) and the project will be completed in a span of two years, he said. Citing the example of police cracking the kidnap and murder of a 10th standard student in 48 hours last week, the Home Minister said the installation of CCTV cameras would be highly helpful in checking rowdyism, terrorism and naxalism.