Mumbai watch to kick off with 1,000 CCTVs by year-end

The state home department has finally decided to float tenders for 5,000 CCTV cameras.

Once the global bidding is complete, and is approved by the state cabinet, the cameras are likely to be installed at prime spots in the island city by year-end.

The first phase of the home department’s plan to instal 5,000 CCTVs across the city will kick off with the state inviting global bids within the next few weeks.

The bidding will be for the entire project, but the first phase will be implemented in South and Central Mumbai, with 1,000 cameras installed at prime spots.

The monitoring centres will be set up at the zonal DCP offices. And all these centres will be connected to the main control room at the Mumbai police headquarters.

A home department official said the company that will win the bid, will shoulder the responsibility of maintaining the CCTVs for three to five years. “The company will have to ensure smooth operation of the system. We will provide them space to instal the cameras, and will monitor the feed from those, but the operational responsibility will be with the firm,” he said.

The proposal of the Rs350-crore project is expected to come up before the state cabinet in the next two to three weeks. One of the leading chambers representing city industrialists had offered to foot the expenditure, but the home department turned down the proposal, thinking it would compromise security.

“The chamber had wanted to exploit the CCTV footage commercially to recover their money. We did not accept it as it might have complicated matters and compromised security,” the official said.

A top officer of the Maharashtra Police said that CCTVs were the need of the hour and should be installed in the city without delay. “The UK has 1.6 million CCTVs for a population of 56 million. Mumbai is the commercial capital of a booming economy, but lags behind by international standards. CCTVs have proved to be helpful not only in monitoring of traffic, but also in controlling crimes,” he said.

He cited the role played by CCTVs in solving the London underground train blast of 2005. “Sadly, Indian Railways have failed in adopting the effective surveillance model of CCTVs.”