2000 CCTV cameras in city by year-end

A month after triple blasts rocked Mumbai and revealed the need for a video surveillance system,senior state home department officials said the timeline has been fixed to set up close to 2,000 sophisticated cameras in the city by the year-end. Bids would be invited in three months on three basic criteria—technical specific for an intelligent camera,software designed to read the images and control room facilities to monitor and store data collected from the cameras. Officials said there are already 400 cameras in the city which ensured that response time to a disaster was seven minutes.

The state government had revived a proposal to install CCTV cameras at vital locations and streets in Mumbai after cameras at Zaveri Bazar provided first leads in the blasts case.

A detailed plan for modernisation of the wireless communication system had been prepared by the state police and teams have been sent to Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh to study their systems. A presentation and review of the various technologies has been discussed. The DGP has been asked to take a final decision within 10 days.