In a move to check the smuggling of drugs and arms through drones from Pakistan, Punjab Police is installing more than 2,000 CCTV cameras with face detection software and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras at 585 locations in various villages along the India-Pakistan border in Punjab.
The CCTV cameras are being procured through open tender under an ambitious project to keep a close eye on the activities along the border and to monitor the persons and vehicles that frequent the border zones. A senior Punjab Police official informed that these cameras will be installed at the second line of defence along the border, that is, a few kilometres from the border.
They would come up in border areas, including police districts, falling under the Border Range and Ferozepur Range. These include Fazilka, Ferozepur, Tarn Taran, Amritsar Rural, Batala and Gurdaspur, senior police officials informed.
The maximum number of locations where the CCTV cameras will be installed is in Ferozepur (130) followed by Tarn Taran (123) and Amritsar (119). The face recognition software to be used with the CCTV cameras will also be able to restore face image from face privacy masking.
“The proposed CCTV surveillance system will involve setting up of Internet Protocol (IP)-based outdoor surveillance cameras across various locations in border areas. The video surveillance data from various cameras deployed will be stored at the locations defined by the police headquarters at appropriate levels of hierarchy and monitored at police stations and at district headquarters. The system will be designed to work in 24×7 environment with the camera feeds being fed to monitoring centres,” a senior officer, who did not want to be named, disclosed.
The proposed system houses software and analytic applications to facilitate deployment of intelligent analytics on the selected cameras and to raise the alarm in case of any unwarranted activity. Analytics software will bring significant benefit to review the incidents and look for any suspicious activity in both live video feeds and recorded footage.
Apart from ANPR analytics, the software will also be able to detect vehicle colour, identify unattended objects, do vehicle tracking, identify overcrowding and recognise faces. These efforts of Punjab Police to use technology to curb smuggling activities through drones will be in addition to the physical checkpoints which are being set up at second line of defence along with personnel of the Border Security Force (BSF). Senior officials say the combined effort will make it difficult for drug and arms couriers, who collect the packages dropped by drones to operate in the border areas.
