17 police stations transformed into viewing centres for safety and security of citizens

Rafique Aziz

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:

The Smart City Mission (SCM) has launched development projects worth more than Rs 1000 crore in the last six years. However, of all the projects, the setting up of two Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCC) in the city, proved to be of great help to police administration, in maintaining the law and order situation and bringing down the crime ratio in the city.

One ICCC is located at SCM Headquarters (Kile Ark) and the second is at the police commissionerate (Kotwalpura-Mill Corner). The most adorable micro-planning was linking these ICCCs with all the police stations and their respective jurisdictions.

SCM project manager Syed Faiz Ali said, “ Under the Safe City project, we have a network of 700 CCTV surveillance cameras, 125 Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and Red Light Violation Detection (RLVD) cameras, apart from 30 Face Recognition (FR) cameras, in the city. In the last couple of years, we have also linked the ICCCs to all 17 police stations in phases. These cameras have been further divided as per the jurisdiction of the police stations. Each police station (also called police viewing centres - PVCs) has been given a separate login ID and password and the police personnel were also imparted training. We have procured a dedicated Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network and developed a system routing these camera footages towards each police station. This helps in viewing the footage through the CCTV cameras installed in their jurisdiction (cannot view other’s jurisdiction). Hence it has become convenient for the police station staff to view the happenings and keep an eye on suspicious movements through wall-mounted internet-equipped monitors and act promptly.”

Ali added, “ The project is helping police administration in resolving hundreds of thefts, chain-snatching, rash driving, etc cases. In the last three years (2021-23), the police cracked 15 murders; 21 chain-snatching; 47 house-breaking and other thefts; 54 accident cases etc.”