Hyderabad: The city police are in the process of laying underground cables for CCTV cameras to overcome the problem of cables accidentally snapping during the rains, during the repair of electric lines, or during tree-felling exercises, as well as cables intentionally being cut by competing cable network operators.
These incidents end up compromising the purpose of the cameras, which is to aid in investigation.
Cops say that such obstacles will be avoided in the new project, as part of which 10,000 new CCTV cameras will be installed for improved crime prevention and detection, through the laying of underground cables. However, the cost of setting up an underground cable network is over double that of setting up an aerial cable network.
Cops investigating various cases often find that they are unable to retrieve CCTV footage from the area in which a crime has occurred because of the damaged cables.
In some cases, cameras are temporarily switched off and rendered useless due to the ongoing metro rail works.
Though the aim is for the entire city to be brought under electronic surveillance, non-functional cameras are a major problem. The maintenance of CCTV cameras requires the cooperation of multiple agencies, for which a mechanism has been developed but is not being implemented effectively.
All the CCTV cameras in the city are geotagged and monitored from the main control room.
The control room receives an alert whenever a camera becomes dysfunctional so that it may be attended to. Though underground cabling is quite expensive as compared to aerial cabling, the project has been taken up keeping the future needs of the city in mind.
Smart CCTV cameras to provide better security
The 10,000 new CCTV cameras that are to be installed in the city will be equipped with automatic number plate reader (ANPR) systems and the ability to capture abnormal noises, identify suspicious vehicles, and detect unusual crowd movements, all of which will be made possible through the use of optical character recognition (OCR) technology. These features will aid in the prevention and detection of crime.
The cameras will be able to capture and track the movement of suspicious vehicles. If the details of a vehicle known to be involved in an accident are uploaded, the cameras will be able to capture its movement and alert the police.
The software will allow vehicles to be identified in terms of colour and other visually distinguishing features if registration numbers are not available.
The cameras will be capable of capturing images every two seconds, round the clock.
Cameras with crowd-capturing features are to be installed at imp-ortant locations such as the Assembly, the Se-cretariat, etc., Alerts will automatically be generated if cameras detect any unusual mo-vements in the crowd.
The cameras will also be able to capture abnormal sounds such as screeches, explosion, collapses, and gunshots and immediately alert the Command Control Centre.
Cameras equipped with missing object analytics are also being installed at certain locations. A set of objects within the purview of each of these cameras will be predefined, and an alert will be generated in the event of any of them going missing. This will help in the prevention of theft of public properties and in the identification of abandoned vehicles. In addition to these uses, the new cameras will also serve to aid in the regulation of traffic.
