Petition for more CCTV cameras

With the recent slur of unwarranted incidents that took place in the city for the last few years, like the Abhaya case or the Dilsukhnagar bomb blasts, the Lok Satta Party has set up an online petition on change.org. This petition has directly been ear-marked to the Chief Minister, N Kiran Kumar Reddy. In this petition, they have urged the CM to install CCTV cameras in the city for the public’s own safety.

They have further elaborated that installation of CCTV cameras would not only help in curbing crimes in the city they will also aide the police in apprehending the culprits in the act.

In the petition, it has also been mentioned that there are just 370 CCTV cameras in the Hyderabad Police Commissioner’s jurisdiction and 51 in the Cyberabad Police Commissioner’s jurisdiction. Of this, 34 cameras and 51 cameras are dysfunctional respectively.

They have also put this issue in contrast to the procurement of new bullet-proof vehicles for the CM and said that the urgency shown in this regard should be dispatched to the public also.

The Government of Andhra Pradesh had estimated that the city would require close to 3,000 CCTV cameras. In fact the same was concurred at the Biodiversity Conference in 2012.

“We need not over emphasise the importance of a CCTV network in all public places in deterring crime and identifying culprits. Within 48 hours of a bomb blast in Boston, the US authorities could nail down the culprits based on CCTV surveillance. CCTV surveillance has also brought to light the betting going on in IPL cricket in India.

The State Government with an annual budget of nearly Rs.1.5 lakh crore can afford to spend funds from its own budget for the network and seek reimbursement from the Center subsequently. Police officers in US & UK rely on surveillance cameras to identify miscreants and thus reduce crime. There are an estimated 30 million surveillance cameras deployed in the United States and 5.9 million in UK which works out to around one for every 11 people. But in Hyderabad we have just a few hundred installed, out of which none were working at the beginning of 2013. It shows that safety is not a priority concern for our government.” This petition signs off with a statement which goes like, “We demand 3000 CCTV cameras in 30 days.” As of Tuesday, the petition had received online support from 394 signatories. They need to receive 106 more to present the petition to the concerned authorities.