Emergency call boxes, CCTVs among other measures: Here’s all you need to know about Bengaluru’s Safe City project

The Safe City project, which is being implemented in many cities across the country under the ‘Nirbhaya Scheme’, created in the aftermath of a horrifying rape incident in New Delhi in 2016, will see the MHA providing 60 per cent funds and the respective states contributing the remaining amount.

As a part of the project’s phase 1 process, the police department in partnership with Honeywell have installed emergency call boxes or emergency panic buttons. The blue coloured call boxes come with a panic button, which when pressed during emergency situations, raises a direct alert to the command centre in the commissionerate’s office. The local police are then directed to attend to the issue.

According to the police department, a total of 50 call boxes will be installed and 30 are already in place under the first phase. Out of the remaining 20, five are already installed and the remaining 15 will be installed before the end of this year.

“Once a person presses an emergency button, a hooter will sound off and an alert will be sent to the command centre. The system is also enabled with two-way communication which allows a person to communicate with the command centre. It is still in the implementation phase and once the system is accepted by the police department only then we can make it publicly available,” said an official associated with the project.

Around 18 personnel are deployed in the command centre for receiving the alerts raised through the emergency call boxes. Ravindra Gadadi, DCP Command Centre, Bengaluru, said, “The installation process is still underway and the emergency call boxes are not operational yet. It is expected to be formally inaugurated next month. The emergency call boxes are still in the testing stage.”

The emergency call boxes will be installed in “vulnerable” areas which are crowded and witness more footfall. So far in the first phase, the emergency call boxes are installed in Ashoknagar, Jananbharati campus, IOC Circle, Russell Market, Marenahalli among other places.

Meanwhile, as a part of the project, there is also a commitment to install 7,500 CCTVs, out of which, around 4,000 have been already installed. In addition, the police department will also roll out an automatic number plate recognition system, facial recognition system, crime analytics system, a mobile command centre and operating drones in a phased manner.

“As part of the safe city project, we are installing over 7,000 CCTVs, including high resolution, fixed and ptz (pan, tilt, zoom) cameras. Some of these cameras, especially the ptz, are strategically placed to focus on the distressed person when he presses the panic button in an emergency call box. We can find out if the call is hoax or genuine. Besides, as a part of the crime analytics, we still need to do a lot of data gathering and map the hot zones. Based on which we will know the crime rate in a particular region in the past three years and mark it as red, orange or a green zone. However, all these technological interventions will be implemented in a phased manner,” said an official associated with the project.

Honeywell will also upgrade the city police department’s existing Suraksha app to help improve the incident response rate and citizen engagement. Bengaluru is among eight cities selected for enhancement of the security environment in phases using modern electronics and communication technology.