As many as 47 traffic signal points in the city will be upgraded with CCTV cameras soon, Commissioner of Police Amit Garg said. Inaugurating the Airlova Traffic Police Station at Hanumanthawaka Junction, the city police chief said as a part of smart policing and security action plan of Vizag, 128 surveillance cameras have been installed at 47 junctions. The installation has been done by Hyderabad-based private firm Stan Power on BOT basis and it would set up another 130 CCTV cameras in the next phase at the 47 junctions to bring the city under the surveillance radar.
Though the CCTV project was taken up in March, 2013, and was supposed to be complete by December in that year, it got delayed due to lack of co-ordination between the civic body GVMC and the firm.
The destruction caused by cyclone Hudhud in October 2014, had obstructed the work. Mr. Garg said that the camera network will comprise both fixed and PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom) cameras, besides monitoring traffic it will also supplement the surveillance network of the police. Currently, the police is monitoring traffic at a few junctions in the city through the command control centre. A video wall with 130 monitors displaying the CCTV footage at various places in the city will be set up in the next few weeks at the new police commissionerate building, he said.
Speaking on the traffic management plan in AP’s biggest city, Garg said that they have sent a recommendation for the creation of six more exclusive traffic police stations in addition to the existing seven. The senior official made it clear that the Airlova police station was not a full-fledged traffic police station, it was a traffic detachment of the PM Palem police station and was also not a part of the proposed six traffic police stations.
