Cidco to install 500 CCTV cams, Navi Mumbai vies for smart-city tag

NAVI MUMBAI: In a first for the state, the vital locations of a major part of an entire city will be under CCTV surveillance. While over 260 CCTV cameras are already installed in areas under the jurisdiction of Navi Mumbai’s municipal corporation, about 500 more will be introduced in six nodes under Cidco: Kharghar, Kalamboli, New Panvel, Kamothe, Ulwe and Dronagiri.

The expanded network, just like the existing one, will be connected to the police control room, where footage will be monitored. The network will also be linked up to a public address and messaging system, and a citizens’ portal, thus making Navi Mumbai vie for the status of ‘smart city’.

Cidco’s managing director, Sanjay Bhatia, told TOI the system would be created for the benefit of people. Surveillance will not be its only role. The cameras will have sensors through which a variety of software applications can be created to give information on pollution and analytical data on traffic. The information can be accessed through a portal to be especially created.

The new cameras will be installed at railway stations, religious places, shops, malls, theatres, hotels, schools, hospitals, key residential areas, industrial units, godowns, warehouses and other commercial and government buildings in Cidco’s jurisdiction. Individual housing societies can voluntarily opt into the network.

The CCTV proposal will be put before the next board meeting, likely to convened in a week. To comprehensively monitor the entire city, including both Cidco and municipal corporation areas, the police have issued a voluntary code of practice for linking the camera networks of the two establishments. A committee under the chairmanship of the principal secretary of the department of information technology, Rajesh Agrawal, has been constituted, with senior police officers as its members.

Cidco said Navi Mumbai will become the first city in India to have a code of conduct for a citywide CCTV surveillance system. Keeping in mind Navi Mumbai’s increasing population, Cidco felt it necessary to keep tabs on miscreants at public places that are vulnerable to crime. Various government and private establishments have accepted the code.

Installation will be in two phases. In the first—covering Kharghar, Kalamboli and
New Panvel—192 cameras will be installed.