Megacity Policing Project to Boost Development of Safe Cities Across India

The Indian video surveillance market is growing at about 30% a year.

According to an ASSOCHAM study, the total electronics security market in India can be pegged at 3,250 crore INR (2012), with an estimated compounded annual growth rate of 25% during 2013-16.

CCTV surveillance, command control centre and aerial surveillance are key components in the burgeoning Indian safe cities industry.

Aiming to provide a safe environment for trade and business,the Indian government has started various key initiatives under the banner of safe/smart cities project.

The government has already allocated US$57m under the Mega City Policing (Safe City) Project in 2005 which reached its maturity in 2010.

The project has since been renewed with further sum of US$72m injected under the Megacity Policing programme between 2013-2017.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has issued guidelines for India’s safe city project where CCTV surveillance is considered to be the backbone for all kinds of technological implementations.

The main aim is to strengthen the police system with the latest technologies to enable them to combat multifarious threats, not least terrorist attacks.

Under this project the ministry will ensure effective implementation of several safe city projects in the ‘mega’ cities of Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Ahmadabad.

The project is based on three major technical components: ie, CCTV surveillance, command control centre and aerial surveillance (UAV/ helicoptors).

CCTV surveillance

Over the years CCTV cameras have proved to be an important tool for detecting crime and now with added features of analytics and facial recognition it is moving towards being better known as a proactive measure rather than just a reactive tool.

Some typical cameras used in surveillance systems are fixed cameras, fixed dome, PTZ, IR and thermal imaging cameras.

The government has realised that all the mega cities should be completely covered with CCTV cameras. These cameras must have analytics and should be installed at all the vital public places, including sensitive areas across the city.

The density of these cameras will be less during the initial stage of the project, but it will gradually increase depending on the need and financial constraints.

The CCTV surveillance network will cover crucial places like airport, railway station, metro station, bus stations, public hospitals, universities, schools and colleges, major crossings and roundabouts on the roads and important government buildings.

Majorly, these will be wireless cameras except for certain places which are important from a national security perspective where sharing data on open platform is vulnerable.

Private companies and business houses will also be exhorted to install CCTV cameras so that data generation can easily be transmitted to the Central Command and Control room. The storage capacity in the servers will be of at least 45 days.

Command control centre

The Command Control centre is termed to be the heart of the safe city project. CCC will have a network of computer systems, which would enable collection of feeds (data-audio, video, text) from CCTV and other devices and should have the capacity to store analyse and disseminate, wherever required.

There would be video walls, where live feeds from the CCTV installed in the city would be received continuously   with flexibility to focus (zero-in) on a particular CCTV camera. It will be equipped with GIS (Georgraphical Information System) which will trace the exact location from where the data has been generated.

CCC will have two to three sections within it and a part of it will be dedicated to storing and handling segregated data for proper analysis.

The data centre will have analysts who will work in the Data Center on the lines of working of the Fusion Center of USA. A small section of the control room will deal with data from CCTVs installed in strategic locations.

Arial surveillance (UAV/ Helicopters)

The modern age surveillance is quickly transforming into Arial monitoring with the increasing deployment of Choppers/ UAVs during special events in the city.

Surveillance from Air can be ensured by positioning various equipments such as balloons, UAVs and unmanned air vehicles, Helicoptors, etc equipped with cameras and sensors to cater to the specialised requirements on the occasion.

The data (video, audio, text) collected from these devices will be fed to the CCC for necessary action for both preventive and post incident operations.

With the increasing crime rate and threats, public safety has become the mandate for various countries across the world. They are ready to influx huge amount of money to ensure security and safety of their citizens.

Implementation of safe city projects in India has given a positive outlook to all the sectors and has paved the road for the country’s overall development.