Two years on, safe city cameras still inoperative

The company contracted for maintenance of the system has reneged on performance

LAHORE:

After having installed the security system at a great expense to the taxpayers, it has been over two years since some of Lahore’s safe city cameras have been non-functional, which has led to an increase in crime.

The Punjab Safe City Authority (PCSA), was established back in 2015, to counter crime and cameras were thought to be an accurate measure to increase residents’ sense of security.

However, in the span of six months, multiple governments have changed but none seems to have found a fix for the malfunctioning cameras installed by Punjab Safe City Authority. Resultantly, criminals in areas where the cameras do not work have had field days much to the dismay of Lahore’s populace. Chief Operating Officer (COO) of PSCA, Kamran Khan, when asked about the plight of residents, conceded that some cameras were indeed non-operational.

“We installed a total of 8,000 cameras in Lahore but out of those about 2,000 are defective,” Khan informed. Sources within the authority informed that attempts have been made to fix the cameras in the past two years by signing a contract with a foreign company but to no avail.

The COO of PSCA, when asked about these attempts, replied: “it is true that an agreement was signed with a company for the maintenance and repair of the cameras for five years, but the company reneged on its agreement, which led to a dispute.” When asked about the rising crime as a result of the impasse on defective cameras, Khan opined that the crime rate had actually gone down. “Even during Muharram and cricket matches, we improved our security due to these cameras.

Furthermore, even the traffic system has improved due to the cameras as an e-challan system has been introduced in Lahore.” As far as the dispute with the company responsible for the repairs is concerned, Khan informed that with the support of the standing committee, the contract for the repair of cameras would be resumed after the approval of the standing committee.

However, the COO did not provide a timeline as to when such approval would be granted but instead said that more cameras would be installed. “550 cameras are being installed at 150 more places. While 1,000 cameras for Metro Bus, Mass Transit Rail and DHA have also been included in our. Moreover, private societies are also being bound to interlink their cameras with PSCA’s network,” Khan told The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 13^th, 2022.