Ahmedabad's ambitious CCTV camera project goes off track

The ambitious CCTV project initiated by Sudhir Sinha, the commissioner of police, Ahmedabad city, has apparently gone off track as the BSNL seems disinterested in starting even the trial run of the project. Sinha, however, has decided to rope in a private company to do the job.

Instead of waiting for government funds, Sinha floated the idea of forming a trust to incur the expenses, hoping citizens of the city would come forward to help the project. According to Sinha, the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) was supposed to purchase, install and maintain the cameras for which a fixed amount was to be paid to the company.

However, according to Sinha, BSNl doesn't seem too enthusiastic to start even the trial run for the project named 'Turn Key Project.' "The trial run was to be started on July 22, 2011 but it has not yet started and so we will shift to some other company," Sinha said.
Sinha, however, has not lost hope and believes that he will soon find some private company in this connection. "We have started to scrutinise private firms who would be willing to implement the project," he said.

The CCTV cameras were supposed to be installed at major cross roads and on moving vehicles in the city. Using the CCTV cameras to keep a tab on terror related activities was to be started in two months. It was also planned that the cameras would be used to catch traffic violators, in six months' time.

A special control room in the commissioner's office was to keep a tab on the traffic violators across the city. The cops would take the addresses of the traffic violators from the Regional Transport Office (RTO) and mail the memos to their homes. The violators would have to eventually pay the penalty at the nearest police station or the commissioner's office.