A high-level committee constituted by the Railway Ministry has devised a strategy on the modalities and procedure for real-time surveillance, storage, retention and retrieval of feed generated by CCTV cameras installed in passenger coaches. The Railways has planned to install surveillance cameras in 7,000 coaches by March 2021 as part of a Video Surveillance System to cover stations and trains.
While cameras were already installed in premium, mail, express and suburban trains and work is on to cover all the 7,000 coaches targeted this fiscal, the Railway Board formed a committee comprising the Executive Director (Telecom Directorate) as convener and the Executive Director (Mechanical Engineering – Coaching), the Deputy Inspector-General (DIG), Railway Board, and the Director (Network Planning and Marketing), RailTel, as members to standardise the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Video Surveillance System in coaches, sources in the railways said on Sunday.
The SOP would consist of details relating to data uploading, retention and retrieval besides defining monitoring and response by security personnel and frontline railway officials.
“The Railway Board would finalise the SOP based on the report of the committee and conforming to the recommendations of the Research Designs & Standards Organisation (RDSO), a R&D arm of the railways. Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) compartments used for Tejas Express, Vande Bharat Express train set coaches and suburban trains (Electrical Multiple Units) were being rolled out with in-built camera facility,” a senior railway official said.
Safety of women
Besides a security measure to prevent/detect crimes at railway stations/trains, the installation of surveillance cameras was also necessitated as a step to ensure adequate safety of women and children on railway premises. In August 2019, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court had directed the Southern Railway to conduct a survey with the assistance of experts and install CCTV in train coaches for the safety of the women, children and elderly passengers.
The railway is also in the process of installing a Video Surveillance System at 6,049 stations of which the Northern Railway will get the maximum coverage at 725 stations, followed by the Southern Railway with 573 stations, the sources added.