Kochi: For over two years, traffic offenders had it easy riding though the city with the dysfunctional surveillance cameras failing to detect offences. Not any more! KELTRON has so far repaired 44 of the city police’s 99 dysfunctional CCTV cameras and the police control room at Tevara has started receiving feeds from the cameras. “The agency is yet to inform us about the completion of the repair works which are fast progressing. The feed from the cameras at Valanjambalam and Vytilla are already being received and monitored for taking action. The rest too will be operational in a short time,” said Mohandas A D, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Control Room.
“Repair and maintenance works are likely to be completed in another ten days. We have so far re-installed fibre-optic cables connecting cameras in a 24-kilometre stretch in the city. In several stretches, the technicians had to splice portions of cables damaged during Kochi Metro construction work which is a time-consuming process,” said S.P. Gopakumar, Project Manager, KELTRON Communications.
Once all the cameras become operational, KELTRON will enter into a three-year annual maintenance contract for Rs 68 lakh with the Kerala Police. “We will hand over the completion report to the police department and a high-level committee of the police will then inspect the functioning of the cameras. The payments will be made based on its recommendations,” the official said. KELTRON suspended servicing of the cameras set up in 2010 after the police department failed to pay pending dues. It agreed to resume services after Rs 33 lakh was paid last month following the intervention of the Director General of Police Loknath Behra.
