New Delhi: More than 7,500 CCTV cameras across the capital were found offline by the Public Works Department (PWD) in its security audit conducted last year.
Launched in 2020 to make the city safer, the government has so far installed around 2.8 lakh cameras in collaboration with various residents’ social associations and trade unions.
According to the latest report submitted by the government in response to a Delhi Assembly question, a total of 7,535 cameras were found to be offline. Reasons cited include power outages, technical malfunctions, theft or vandalism, and removal or relocation of cameras.
“In the category of technical faults, mostly the company providing the network has problems and there is no live transmission in the Central Command Center (CCC) and then there are theft of parts and power cuts, which are external factors. We are trying to solve all this in the future tender,” said the PWD representative.
In a move to increase security, the Delhi government plans to install 50,000 more CCTV cameras across the city, while also prioritizing the maintenance of these cameras.
CCTV cameras are mostly installed in public areas like markets, roads, inside residential colonies and business centers and are connected to the CCC at the PWD headquarters.
The ministry has handed over the maintenance of the cameras to Bharat Electronic Limited (BEL), a public sector unit under the Ministry of Defence.
“In future, we are planning to issue a consolidated tender for proper maintenance of CCTV cameras. At present, we have a separate company that is in charge of maintenance work,” said a senior PWD official, adding that the number of malfunctioning cameras is real-time and constantly changing.
Last year, PWD Minister Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma said during an assembly session in February that the government plans to increase CCTV coverage in the city.
According to the previous plan, 4,000 cameras were to be installed in each constituency. However, there have been allegations that constituencies represented by BJP MLAs have received fewer cameras, allegedly due to denial of approval.
For installing the new cameras, the PWD has estimated the cost at ₹100 crore, which is likely to include installation and maintenance.
