25% CCTV cameras across city go kaput, CP miffed

Nagpur: About 25% close-circuit television (CCTV) cameras out of 3,500 installed across the city nearly a decade ago by spending crores of rupees have been lying defunct for the last many months.
Ironically, the concerned authorities made no efforts to either replace or repair these CCTV cameras.

On Tuesday, commissioner of police Amitesh Kumar convened a meeting with the officials of Nagpur Smart and Sustainable City Development Corporation Limited and L&T Company over the issue.
Kumar had expressed his disappointment with the concerned officials of the civic body over the dysfunctional CCTV cameras. It’s learnt that maximum cameras of highly crime prone and communally sensitive north Nagpur and surrounding places are not functioning crippling the policing actions and monitoring.
On Tuesday, around 986 cameras were not functioning across the city. These cameras were installed by the NSSCDCL keeping in view the deteriorating law and order situation in the city and rising number of accidents.
However, the cameras failed to serve the purpose as these go kaput quite often. The company, which was given the contract for their installation, failed to provide proper service. The NSSCDCL too failed to initiate action against the erring company.
A source close to the development said that the issue of non-functioning of CCTV cameras came to fore after the city cops were left clueless about several street crimes following non-operational CCTV cameras at vital installations. Citizens have been exposed to the threat of street crimes and cops have little clue to trace the perpetrators, said the source.
Even traffic cops were left in a fix as they could not get any backup from the command and control system.
Though NSSCDCL chief executive officer Ajay Gulhane did not respond to the calls, sources claimed that the ongoing road infra projects have damaged cables of CCTVs at several places especially on Amravati road, Kalamna, Pardi etc.
Kumar, who gave a tongue-lashing to the concerned officials, repeatedly asked about the reason behind the dysfunction of the CCTVs apart from monetary issues which had cropped up earlier too. The officials were unable to furnish any concrete replies. The top cop had urged the concerned officials to start 200-250 cameras at the earliest.
Kumar had also asked the civic body officials to fix the responsibilities of the concerned agencies for whom the CCTV cameras are repeatedly developing technical snag.
Kumar asked the service providers to ensure that the defunct CCTV cameras are made operational soon.