Citizens and police unite for Surat’s ‘third eye’
31 May 2013
Published by Rediff.com News
Today Surat has 104 cameras at 23 locations, mainly at entry and exit points, at the airport, railway stations, bus stands, main markets, and at all main traffic junctions. The spots were decided after the survey by a private agency. What is shot in real-time by the high-tech cameras with high density resolutions, provided by Verint Systems, is visible constantly on the huge wall.
Any incidents including roads accidents or crimes are relayed real time to the control centre. The video footage is sent through an optic fibre network, already in place in Surat as it is in most cities of Gujarat. All the cameras are tamper-proof and provide superb clear quality vision and have a range of 1,200-1,500 metres. It can work without power for almost six hours since it has a UPS attached.
All the video footage is stored in IBM machines for one month. So in any crime if police wants to locate movement of criminals or their vehicles, they can go back to the video footage to check and verify. Around 95 cameras are fixed with 36X zoom and the rest are moving cameras that can cover a 360 degree view.
The story started on July 13, 2011 when bomb blasts rocked Mumbai’s Zaveri Bazaar, Dadar and Opera House areas where Gujarati diamond merchants were targeted. The blast killed 26 people and injured around 100.
Asthana, being the police commissioner of a city where the diamond trade is flourishing, understood well that if Mumbai can be targeted Surat can’t be far behind. Asthana and city’s civic society felt strongly that something should be done to ensure that Zaveri Bazaar type of bomb blasts be prevented.
The money collected from various industries and businesses was transferred to the Surat Traffic Education Trust and the Surat police executed the project with help of a local firm.
The tender was won by Surat-based Innovative Telecom & Software, which is expected to implement the five-phase project which will see deployment of 5,000 surveillance cameras at more than 500 locations to cover 150 square km of city. It is a fine example of police-public-private partnership.
The historic city handles more than 85 percent of rough diamonds in the world providing employment to more than 5 lakh people and generating a turnover of over Rs 80,000 crore.
Also Surat supplies synthetic textile to almost the entire India. Asthana says, “Surat has been a top terrorist target for long. I got an excellent response from local people. They came forward to plan out best security for themselves. We have set up the surveillance system with funds entirely from the public.”