Railways yet to take final call on CCTV tender for stations

New Delhi: The railways is yet to a final call on the procurement of CCTV cameras, which are planned for installation at 6,049 stations, amid reports that the top bidders may get the gadgets from Chinese firms.
The railway ministry PSU, RailTel, has received bids for this major procurement of cameras and in June had signed a MoU with ministry of railways for providing Video Surveillance System (VSS) work at stations.
Responding to a question on the fate of this tender, railway board chairman, V K Yadav said, “All our tenders including the tender you are referring to and even for train operation by private players, we are following the Make in India policy circulated by DPIIT in letter and spirit. We will follow the same policy and we will take a final call. It is yet to be taken with regard to the CCTV tender.”
Yadav said in the past five years railways have made a lot of efforts to reduce the import component. “Our imports, which used to be around 7% before six-seven years, it’s only 2.46% during this fiscal year. Only three items – track machine, wheel and axle – have around about 90% share of the total current import. We have taken action for indegenising these items and from next fiscal, these will be manufactured in India. So the import will reduce drastically,” he added.