The move promises to enhance safety and ensure better detection of cases that remain pending for a want of evidence
Two crime cases involving local trains remain pending for the lack of CCTV cameras inside the coaches. In September this year, 32-year-old Aarti Salian fell off a moving train at Nallasopara while trying to nab a robber. In the same month, another 19-year-old girl was pushed out of a moving train by a mugger at Virar station. For both cases, the railway police are only scouting for proof using the CCTVs installed in rail platforms. This, however, may change soon.
The Western Railway has already mooted a plan to install 1,848 CCTVs inside all coaches — both ladies and general compartment — of local trains. Sources said that they shall be installing these high definition CCTVs inside 308 coaches, for which a proposal has been prepared. Each coach will have six CCTVs installed that would cover most of the spaces inside and near the doors. This will be the first time that CCTVs inside coaches will be installed at such a large scale.
"This would surely give more confidence to commuters as far as the safety of women is concerned. This will also help nab commuters who travel in groups and block seats and doors, resulting in arguments and fights," said Sandeep Salian, husband of Aarti who fought the mobile thief. "There is also a need to post two railway police staff at the end of every platform at least during the lean hours so that such robbery cases can be tackled".
As per plans, the WR will install high -resolution CCTVs. The first lot of CCTVs installed had a problem — that images generated were blurred and pixelated. The effort was going waste. "The problems that had cropped up earlier have been tackled in the new lot of CCTVs. We will also have an integrated security system to cover 32 railway stations," said a WR official.
The railway ministry has given full freedom to its authorities vis-a-vis spending funds to tackle safety issues. The integrated security system would cost Rs 114 crore; it would have a dedicated room at stations that would be beamed with live images to montior passenger activities, face recognition, identifying areas where there is large crowd, auto-alert of suspicious movement of people at rail premises, alerting trespassing on rail tracks through a network of CCTV cameras, etc.
"We have already installed CCTVs inside 51 women's coaches. The process to install them in all coaches has begun," said Ravinder Bhakar, Chief PRO, Western Railway. The WR will be installing more than 2,700 CCTVs at railway stations, which would also include replacing the 1,100 CCTVs that are of inferior quality.
"The railways should ensure that these are properly monitored and timely action is taken. People should be assigned particular responsibilities to address any lacuna in alerting their staff at station premises in case an untoward incident is reported," said Kailash Verma, member, Mumbai Rail Pravasi Sangh.
The electronic surveillance inside ladies' compartments was first planned in mid-2015. The recorder can save data for upto 30 days.
WHAT'S IN STORE
- As per plans, the WR will install high -resolution CCTVs.
- The first lot of CCTVs installed had a problem — the images were blurred and pixelated.
- An integrated security system will be built, too. It will cover 32 stations.
- There would be rooms broadcasting live images through CCTVs to monitor pas\senger activities.
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