Work on the Rawalpindi city surveillance project has not started even after five years of its announcement. The previous Punjab government had announced to start city surveillance project for Rawalpindi like other districts in Punjab. However, the project never got beyond the drawing board stage.
Sources in the district administration said that work on the Rawalpindi city surveillance project which was announced in 2017 was yet to start.
A modern command and control room is to be constructed for the project near Rawalpindi Kutcheri which would be used for monitoring of several locations of city and cantonment including shopping malls, mosques, imambargahs, hotbeds of crime by closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras.
Officials said Rs500 million was allocated for the project but not released because of multiple reasons. They added that the incumbent government had also shown no interest in installing the surveillance system. Meanwhile, the law enforcement agencies (LEAs) have frequently declared the project of most importance for the security of Rawalpindi.
Read Mega projects worth Rs24b in pipeline for Rawalpindi
Sources said that they have included the monitoring system in the list of other mega projects of Rawalpindi including Ring Road, Daducha Dam, six parking plazas etc which could not be completed or started because of various reasons.
They added that the project will help maintain law and order and improve traffic flow on major thoroughfares of the city. It will help uplift police performance too and improve the law and order situation.
Sources said the city surveillance system, the SHOs of all police stations of Rawalpindi were to be provided with tablets that were to remain connected with internet WiFi throughout.
The tablets would be linked with data of convicted criminals and terrorists and stolen vehicles.
Further, sources said the Dolphin Squad was supposed to be equipped with smartphones linked with the surveillance system that would have improved policing to a vast extent.
The patrol squad was also to be connected with the global positioning system (GPS) under the surveillance system.
This would have helped to find out the position of the patrolling squad at any instant, while they could be instantly informed about any criminal activity in their proximity.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 27th, 2021.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ