The Indian Railways has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with RailTel for installation of an IP-based video surveillance system at 6,049 railway stations across the country.

RailTel, a public sector undertaking (PSU) under the Ministry of Railways, will be providing the video surveillance system (VSS) work at the 6,049 stations under categories A1, A, B, C ,D and E of the Indian Railways.

The scope of work also includes integration of the existing standalone CCTV network of the railways into the VSS system for centralised monitoring.

"These IP-based CCTV cameras will be networked on optical fibre cable and the video feed of the CCTV cameras will be brought to a nearest RPF thana/chowki control room, from where the video feed will be viewed on multiple LCD monitors by RPF personnel, enhancing the security and safety of the passengers tremendously. RailTel has already installed VSS at 215 stations across the country. And another 85 stations will be commissioned by September 2020," a statement from the national transporter said.

Railtel has also provided CCTV cameras at the entry and exit points of 54 railway stations to facilitate the running of Shramik Special trains.

The recording of the video feed from the CCTV cameras will be stored for 30 days for playback, post-event analysis and investigation purposes. Important videos can be stored for a longer duration.

"Apart from recording of 30 days of video feed of the cameras, inclusion analytics and facial recognition systems are also covered in the scope of work. Command and control centre for centralised viewing of the video feed and management of alerts will also be commissioned," the statement said.

These cameras will help in keeping a tab of all the activities at the station premises 24x7.