Amid outrage over the assault of an army officer and his fiancée at Bharatpur police station which it turned out does not even have CCTV cameras, DGP YB Khurania has sought a report on police stations in the state where there are no cameras or those where the devices are lying defunct. The new building of Bharatpur police station was inaugurated in March this year. The police station had been functioning from an outpost for over three years.
Sources in state police headquarters said it is being probed why the CCTV cameras could not be installed in the new police station. “For various reasons, the old CCTV cameras could not be installed in the new building of Bharatpur police station. The agency which was supposed to reinstall them did not execute the work. This apart, the building’s infrastructure is huge and requires more and better quality cameras but the surveillance is yet to be launched,” they said.
Police sources said Khurania will soon inspect the police stations where there are no CCTV cameras or those where the devices are lying defunct. Accordingly steps will be taken to enhance camera surveillance at police stations.
As per Bureau of Police Research and Development’s (BPRD) data on police organisations issued earlier in the year, the state had 679 police stations as on January 1, 2023. The total estimated number of the CCTV cameras to be installed was around 13,647.
However, 11,887 CCTV cameras were installed across 591 police stations till January 1, 2023. The report said about 1,760 CCTV cameras are yet to be installed in various police stations across the state.
Sources said a total of 684 police stations have been sanctioned by Odisha government till date and of them 680 are operational. However, many police stations which were inaugurated in the last two years are not equipped with CCTV cameras.
