Camera shy? Pvt cos fail on surveillance device upkeep in Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad: Police have been unable to make any breakthrough in the suspected abduction of four-year-old Vedika Bheel from Law Garden on Saturday evening. Investigations, however, have revealed a major blind spot.
All eight CCTV cameras installed inside Law Garden are defunct, highlighting Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation's (AMC) oversight. What makes the problem even more complex is that development and maintenance of gardens in different areas of the city, including CCTV cameras, has been assigned to private companies under a public-private-partnership (PPP) model. These parks include Parimal Garden in Ambawadi, Sardar Baug at Lal Darwaza, and Tilak Baug in Jamalpur.
An AMC official, speaking anonymously, said the company contracted to maintain the cameras at Law Garden failed in this task. Similarly, Parimal Garden too lacks CCTV surveillance.
Sources indicate that nine years ago, AMC-managed Ahmedabad Smart City Company planned setting up infrastructure under the Safe and Secure Ahmedabad (SASA) initiative, including 6,500 CCTV cameras and a command control centre, at a cost of Rs 239 crore.
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These included systems at traffic junctions and at AMC's offices, schools, civic centres, and other govt buildings.
In 2018-19, 242 CCTV were installed at 17 traffic signals, 1,170 were set up at 75 signals in 2019-20, and 587 at 38 signals in 2020-21 at a total cost of Rs 16.20 crore. No new cameras have been installed at any signal from 2021-22 to 2023-24. Of the 1,999 installed, 1,749 are operational, though an average of five percent are non-functional.
Sources further said that AMC installed 2,471 CCTV cameras at its offices, schools, civic centres and its parks and lakes of which 475 are defunct. As many as 191 cameras are not connected to the control centres, 161 have maintenance issues and 123 have no power connections. Sixteen cameras were installed at Vastrapur lake in 2016-17, but all were dismantled.
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