UP govt installs 5,000 CCTVs across cities for active surveillance

The Uttar Pradesh government has installed about 5,000 CCTVs in 16 cities with a view to ensure people's safety, officials said here on Thursday.

Every intersection, major roads, expressways, railways, and metro stations are covered under these cameras, they said.

The exercise has been undertaken to achieve the government's goal of creating safe and smart cities through an Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC).

The Centre which finds mention in almost every speech of the Chief Minister at Prabuddhjan Sammelans' (intellectual meets) which have been held across several districts of the state does not only seek to monitor and regulate traffic but also keep a vigil on other activities on the streets through these CCTVs, they said.

"Our cities are now getting smart as well as safe. Now a criminal or an anti-social element, who harasses our sisters and daughters at one intersection and commits robbery at another, will be caught instantly by the police at the next intersection," the CM has been saying in these meetings.

The scheme is a joint venture between the Central and state government.

The Centre has helped UP install CCTVs in several cities including Kanpur, Lucknow, Agra, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Aligarh, Bareilly, Jhansi, Saharanpur, and Moradabad.

The state government in its turn has provided grants for installation of cameras in Ayodhya, Mathura-Vrindavan, Firozabad, Meerut, Shahjahanpur, Gorakhpur, and Ghaziabad.

Cooperation of private companies has also been taken in for the purpose.

Under the Smart City Mission, the Urban Development department took over the responsibility of installation of CCTVs, which have been mounted on expressways and on toll plazas by NHAI, by the railways on railway stations, and by the metro administration at metro stations.

All these have been linked to the ICCC.